


And I'm Here

by nymja



Series: Crossroads [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Earn the happy ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Knights of the Old Republic vibes, Minor or Background Pairings, Strung-Out Force Prophecy, Torture, storm the castle!, the lightsabers are a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-14 07:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11777901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: We tear apart to hold together.--The third (and final) part of the Crossroads series.Sequel toThe Death of Kylo RenandStars Don't Come Down.





	1. prologue: satellite love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very happy to be here and very happy if you're still here with me <3 Off we go to the third and final part of the Crossroads series! 
> 
> Chapter count more of a guesstimation at this point, rating might also go up, and tags are subject to change as well.

\--

_I hear you._

\--

 

Pain isn’t enough to wake him anymore, so it’s not until early the next morning that Kylo sees the bruises, feels the pull his muscles place on his spine. They might be his, but he doesn’t know. He’s learned that he has to stop obsessing over every new scratch, new scar, new ache. Instead he keeps them marked on the wall, a new tally for every injury. A count of scores to be settled by the end.

 

Ben Kanata’s wall is covered with over 540 marks. The oldest of them are carved in the middle of its expanse, ragged and angry and many of them framed by the plasma scarring of what made them. But over the last six months, they’ve grown. The newest are devoid of the carelessness of their predecessors. They sit, parallel and near perfectly straight--even white lines etched carefully with a bit of scrap metal that Ben used to use to clean out carbon build-up on carburetors.

 

Staring at them, there is no mistaking that they shifted from outburst to promise, a reaction to a plan.

 

547 marks. 547 injuries.

 

And Kylo is starting to learn the new language that draws itself on his skin.

 

He makes new marks on the wall (three), and swings his legs to the side of the single, small bed. He pulls on his black, heavy boots and takes the rare moment he gets _unsupervised_ to observe what’s been left for him today.

 

A burn over the inside of his forearm, long and oval-shaped. Red and tender. He traces his fingers over it, closes his eyes. He finds what he can of this side of the Force and channels healing energy into it. The pain subsides, leaving behind a trail paler and waxier.

 

She was practicing with a lightsaber again.

 

Kylo opens his eyes, looks to the side of the room where the workbench was patched back together. Resting on top of it, over a carefully folded rag, is her real one made piecemeal. One end is silver, the other red. Legacy items from his mother and grandfather that he was unable to hold on to.

 

He stands and walks over to it, scarred and scabbed hands picking up the weapon as though it were made of glass. It’s lighter in his grip than he expects. Her strange, ugly craftsmanship leaves wires exposed but the hold perfectly balanced.

 

Feeling a sting on his arm, he sets the lightsaber down carefully to roll up the edge of his sleeve, moving past the elbow and up halfway over his bicep.

 

Bruises in the rough shape of a hand. Angrily, he rolls up the other side to see a matching set on his opposite arm.

 

She’d been hauled away again.

 

He catches his reflection in a piece of chromatic plating on the table. A circular cut surrounded by a blossoming bruise is just to the upper left of his eye.

 

And knocked out.

 

Kylo braces his weight against the table, shoulders hunched.

 

\--

 

In a small room without windows or doors, Rey lies on her side on the floor. With a light touch, she traces over the burned skin that is now a scar, and folds her arm into her chest before she falls asleep.

 

\--

 

No one looks away when he enters the bar that evening, and almost out of spite, no one stops what they’re doing. Maz’s place has always been one of complicated loyalty, and within it are those who still see him as Ben Kanata: grumpy, underpaid, insignificant.

 

And then there are those who see him as what he is.

 

Kes Dameron sits to the side of the bar, a beer in front of him. He looks up at Kylo with a sort of resigned familiarity. They’ve exchanged words since his return from Yavin, but they’ve been short. Stilted. Not like the ones he remembers having as Ben Kanata--ones with pazaak and stories.

 

Not knowing what else to do, Kylo plans to keep walking forward. But the person beside Kes gives him pause.

 

A stern, narrow face with sharp features. Black hair with streaks of grey at the temples. A mouth lined in a perpetual frown of disapproval.

Wedge Antilles.

 

The retired fighter pilot who used to bring him stuffed animals turns in his seat, as if he senses his presence. He takes a long look at Kylo, and it’s enough for him to know that Wedge has heard the rumors. The old man’s lips press tightly together, dark eyes trying to burn a hole through him.

 

Kylo decides he is staying where he is, directly in Wedge’s line of sight. He is not the scared boy the old man likely remembers, and he isn’t ashamed of any of the steps that brought him to this moment bar one.

 

Whatever conversation Wedge was having with Kes falls away, Poe’s father sending Kylo a concerned look from over the pilot’s shoulder.

 

Wedge moves to sit up-

 

-and Kylo feels a hand on his shoulder.

 

Immediately he pivots, snarl on his features and ready to fight.

 

Finn stands unimpressed before him, wearing a sweat-stained tank top and worn pants. On his side glints a metallic cylinder, clipped neatly beside his side blaster. It makes something in Kylo twist, unsettled and wary and _bitter_.

 

“We started already,” Finn states, face grim. His arm is too relaxed against the same side as his newly created lightsaber. His words are edged with a bitter disapproval. “So try to fight with Luke’s boyfriend another time.”

 

Kylo scowls. Without another word, he pushes forward, ignoring the set of eyes trained to his back or the sound of a chair sliding back.

 

\--

 

No one meets her eyes, no matter where she goes. Rey walks past rows and rows of unmoving stormtroopers, and not one of them says a word. She is surrounded by people who are only there to make her feel alone.

 

\--

 

Luke pulls the rest of his hair back into the bun he’s started favoring. Over the six months since his awakening, he hasn’t cut his hair--something Kylo suspects is borne from a ridiculous, unhelpful sentimentality.

 

“You’re not trying,” he says, walking beside where Finn and Kylo hold each other at a standstill.

 

Finn’s weapon is impractical, far brighter than a lightsaber needs to be and an obnoxious shade of golden yellow. Kylo presses down harder into his block, and the traitor grits his teeth but doesn’t move.

 

Luke seems to sense his less than kind thoughts, because the next thing Kylo feels is the heavy, wooden weight of his staff slamming against the backs of his knees. He staggers, the heat of the braced lightsabers washing over his face before he quickly steps back.

 

“Extend,” is all his uncle says, deep circles under his eyes. “ _Feel_ it.”

 

“Just tell me the technique!” He spits back for the thousandth time, shaking free of his duel with Finn like shaking away an insect. His lightsaber disengages beside him as he turns and towers over his uncle’s frailer form.

 

Luke looks up, a darkness in his expression that should rightfully frighten Kylo. Little does, these days. “Not until you’ve earned it,” he states coldly.

 

Kylo glares down. His uncle is unmoved.

 

“I could be so much stronger than this,” he finally hisses.

 

Luke shakes his head.

 

“No, Ben. Not until you’re willing to learn.”

 

He walks away.

 

Finn takes his place.

 

“Let’s...just go again, alright?” He asks quietly, sending Luke a furtive gaze as the old man retreats.

 

Kylo sneers at Finn. At his patience, at his ugly lightsaber. At having what Luke apparently feels worthy of teaching.

 

In lieu of an answer, he throws out his hand and Finn is Force shoved a few feet across the dirt. He jumps up, igniting his lightsaber.

 

And their spar begins again.

 

\--

 

She falls to her knees, biting back a scream as he threads through her thoughts, tries to pick apart her memories like carrion.

 

“Surrender to your feelings,” Snoke states calmly above her, as she digs her fingers into the metal floor and pants. “And you could be so much stronger.”

 

They fall before her as he tears them from her memories--anger, pain, fear.

 

And loneliness.

So much loneliness.

 

“No,” she mutters.

 

Snoke sighs in disappointment, taking a step back as he summons her punishment.

 

Rey bares her teeth at him when the lightning strikes, and refuses to learn.

 

\--

 

“We’re all doing our best,” his mother says. No chastising, no sympathy. Diplomatic.

 

He doesn’t know why or how he ends up here every night, but he does.

 

“Poe spoke in your defense today,” Leia continues from her place across the table. Her rooms on Takodana are nicer than Ben Kanata’s. Her lips turn to a wry smile. “Well, almost.”

 

“I don’t care,” Kylo bites out.

 

His chest hurts, a phantom vice squeezing tightly from somewhere unreachable, and his grip tightens on the mug in front of him. He can no longer hear her words or thoughts in the Force, but he feels her pain--the echoes of it reverberating in his chest. _There isn’t time._

 

“What is it?” Leia asks, her own gaze troubled.

 

He doesn’t answer, his senses cast as far as he can reach. It isn’t far enough. There are no visions, no messages. There’s only him and the feeling that something _wrong_ is about to happen.

 

Kylo looks up.

 

\--

 

Rey looks up.

 

Another spike of pain fills her as Snoke stands impassive, ready to increase her regiment.

 

She would grab for a weapon, but he took back the lightsaber he forced her to use just as quickly as he gave it to her.

 

He extends his fingers, ozone fills the air. The hairs on Rey’s arms stand just before the lightning hits again-

 

\--

 

The hair raises on the back of his neck as the door to Leia’s chamber slides open. Luke walks in.

 

“Luke?” Leia asks, the two of them sharing _something_ in their own, twin bond that Kylo is obviously not privileged to.

 

His face is grim. Luke looks at Kylo and shakes his head.

 

“You aren’t-”

 

\--

 

“ _-_ ready.” Bored _,_ Snoke takes a step closer to where she lays prone, smoke curling from her clothes. “I’m disappointed, Rey. Aalto led me to believe you were his better.”

 

She turns her face away, curling into herself. Her entire body hurts, every cell on flame and her grasp on conscious weak. Sweat makes the fabric of her black tunic stick to her skin, everything too close and too raw.

 

Snoke stands before her, the hem of his robes directly in her line of sight. He does not move closer, does not bend down or kneel to address her.

 

“ _Rise,_ ” he commands.

 

She won’t. She won’t move.

 

“ **_Now_ **.”

 

There is a compulsion in his command that breaks through, that she can’t fight. Rey’s hands are numb as they brace her weight against the ground, as she tries to get into a kneel with her wounded, hurting form.

 

Snoke’s expression is unchanged. His pale face, which must have once been beautiful but is now something ruined, does not align with hers. She is beneath his notice. A weed he is trying to decide if he should bother gardening.

 

She wishes she had a weapon. More than anything, in this moment, she wants to kill him.

 

 _“What comes easiest to you, Rey?”_ Aalto had asked her, once. _“What can you do better than the Masters?”_

 

Snoke raises his hand. His fingers slide into her hair, a benevolent parent comforting a disobedient child. “Have faith, and you will rise victorious.”

 

Rey shakes.

 

 _“Fight,”_ she had said without hesitation.

 

She closes her eyes. Snoke’s touch is cold and waxy against her scalp.

 

_Aalto shook his head._

 

Rey straightens in her kneel, bowing her head forward just a little. Snoke, above her, sees this as supplication and gives the smallest of smiles.

 

\--

 

Leia gives the smallest of frowns.

 

“...You want to go after Snoke,” she states--her voice distant.

 

Luke doesn’t look away from Kylo.

 

\--

 

Rey, for the first time since her capture six months ago, hears whispers as her fingers press down against the metal.

 

\--

 

“It’s time,” is all Luke manages. “We have to move, or we lose her.”

 

Kylo stands.

 

\--

 

_Listen to Dantooine, listen to the ghosts._

 

Rey feels the Force curl around her, as tangible as spider webs.

 

_Watch the stars, one by one by one._

 

\--

 

“Where?” He demands.

 

Luke’s eyes stare past him, far away. But it’s Leia who answers, lips pursed and brows drawn.

 

“Lehon.”

 

Kylo storms out without another word.

 

\--

 

Rey’s head snaps up, and with speed Snoke does expect from her, she extends her hand.

 

Two fingers brush against his forehead, and Rey _pulls_ with the Force. The images are fast, disjointed. She can’t make sense of them all, but they are _his_ and they are what he doesn’t want her to see-

 

_Smoke. A temple. The sound of screams as fire catches to cloth, to skin-_

 

Before Rey can pull further, she is weightless, suspended. And then thrown across the room, her back colliding with a wall before she falls to the ground. Breath and sight rush out without her consent at the force of it.

 

\--

 

Kylo stops in the hall, breath gone and vision spotted. He leans against it, trying not to stagger.

 

\--

 

“Take her to her room,” Snoke says, voice calm.

 

Stormtroopers pick her up from her place on the floor, but Rey does not look away from Snoke. He stares back at her, placid.

 

She lifts her head in defiance, knowing something has changed between them.

 

Because when Rey looks at his scars, the deep crevices and knotted tissues of his face...

...she now sees that part of him is afraid of her.

 

\--

 

His mother follows after him. “Ben, are you alright-?”

 

Kylo ignores her, exhaling and stepping forward until he is at a viewport. He looks out above him, up at the sky where there are thousands of stars in the universe--knowing that Lehon is one of them.

 

 _Are you it?_ He thinks. _Are_ _you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [Lehon aka Rakata Prime](http://swtor.wikia.com/wiki/Lehon)


	2. remains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short set-up chapter before we get into NON-STOP ACTION SCENES :) ilu all <3 hope you enjoy!

 

“A small strike team selected by Luke will lead the ground recon efforts-” the screen flickers, slides to a new image of a beach. “Blue Squadron was able to provide us images of Lehon’s stronghold. And we had inside intel from the First Order…”

 

A tense silence falls across the meeting, as most eyes drift to where he is sitting. He doesn’t care, his jaw clenched tightly and his eyes trying to pierce a hole through this Statura as he _wastes his time_.

 

“...that we suspect to be reliable,” the admiral concludes, meeting Kylo’s gaze.

 

The image flickers to a rough blueprint of an ancient temple. Once lead by the Rakata, now lead by Snoke. It is where Kylo and the others had first lived, after the fall of the praxeum. He hates himself for not thinking of it earlier than now. That he is stuck in a debriefing no one wants him in when it would’ve been faster ( _better_ ) to just go himself.

 

“Chill,” Finn whispers to his side, but the word just angers him more.

 

They sit in the central debriefing chamber of _The Echo of Hope,_ a flagship cruiser en route to Lehon. To the Resistance’s (begrudging) credit, the troops had mobilized quickly. Kylo watches the room, as the room undoubtedly watches him back. Angry, skeptical, and hateful gazes pin him to his seat--his mother’s cool glance from across the debriefing chamber stills his acting on them.

 

He is seated, pointedly perhaps, between Finn and his uncle. The latter of which is in charge of the rescue mission as the rest of the Resistance fleet attempts to wipe out the base on Lehon. Foolish, stupid strategies that he knows aren’t going to work. But the Resistance’s strategic initiatives in this move don’t matter to him. In honesty, they never have. Kylo is self-aware enough to know he is selfish, that his agenda has a clear circle drawn around it and the First Order’s dealings are outside of it.

 

They could burn. The Resistance could burn. Either option made no difference, so long as what mattered to him remained unscathed.

 

“How are you getting into the temple?” He bites out, interrupting the debriefing. To his right, Finn sends him an annoyed glance, one that is replicated by his mother and Poe Dameron, seated to her left. Luke remains silent and unmoving, unsurprisingly. Weak and passive as always.

 

“We’ll get to that,” Leia says with a calm he knows his mother isn’t feeling at his outburst.

 

“Agenda item 6 deals with the temple excursion-”

 

“And that means?” Kylo interrupts. Again.

 

“It means we’ll remove you from the meeting if you don’t shut up,” Poe responds, crossing his arms over his chest. “You don’t need to be here. Go, if you don’t want to listen--even though it’s a week-long flight and you probably have nothing better to do.”

 

Kylo’s jaw clenches.

 

Poe’s eyebrows raise.

 

He takes a long breath through his nose.

And surprises no one when he stands up and storms out of the room.

 

\--

 

His mother finds him later.

 

She says nothing as she walks, uninvited, into his makeshift quarters. Her hair is braided in a simple, practical crown around her head, her clothes are fatigues he suspects she wouldn’t have been caught dead in twenty years ago. And she is standing in a way that would be familiar to him were he to look in a hologlass-- shoulders back, chin up, fists clenched at her sides.

 

“There is going to be more at stake in this fight then Rey,” she greets, tone level.

 

“I don’t care.” He is sitting at a workbench, his hands fiddling with the lightsaber in front of him. The purple crystal from his weapon catches the light from the overhead and shines like a beacon in the dark.

 

“I know you don’t,” she says, walking over to him. He doesn’t look up as she leans against the wall, arms crossed over her chest. “But this isn’t about just you. And I’m trying to be patient.”

 

He looks up, snorts. “Sorry for the _inconvenience._ ”

 

Before, she might have flinched. But there is iron in Leia’s veins just as much as there is in his. “Cut the bantha shit, Ben-”

 

“ _That’s not my name_.”

 

“Like hell it isn’t.” She inhales, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I know these aren’t ideal circumstances. I know you’re hurting.” Her eyes flicker to his, meaningfully, “I know what loss is and what it does to you. But you…” She grabs onto his arm, and they’re both surprised when he doesn’t shake her off.

 

“You’ve got to keep it together, Ben.” He feels her gaze on him but he doesn’t look at her, instead working his throat as he bites back words he doesn’t know how to formulate yet. “If you don’t, people are going to get hurt.”

 

“I’m only going for Rey.”

 

“We all want to help Rey,” Leia says, and he hates that she means it. “But you know she’s not all you have. Even if…” her voice softens, just a little. “Even if you don’t want us, we’re here for you. Me, Luke. Kes. Finn. And we’ll keep waiting--because what have you done that we haven’t already forgiven you for?”

 

He closes his eyes.

 

“We just need time, same as you.” She sits next to him on the workbench, uninvited. He doesn’t move over for her, but he doesn’t try and push her, either. “All we’ve ever wanted for you was to come home, Ben. Your…” she inhales, and she doesn’t cry because that’s not his mother’s way, but he hears the grief all the same. “Your father died for you to be here, right where you are.”

 

He wants to say something caustic to that, and it almost slips out, but his mother cuts him off--her words like steel.

 

“Don’t you _dare_ waste it.”

 

Before he can think of something to say, she’s standing--the space next to him empty and immediately cold. Leia looks down at him, crosses her arms again.

 

“Our next debrief is in an hour. Try and sit through it.”

 

He scowls at the components of his lightsaber, spread out before him. The ones Rey had taught him how to assemble correctly. He wants to wipe them off the table, scream and destroy the room around him.

 

But after a moment, he takes a shaky inhale and goes back to cleaning his focusing lens.

 

\--

 

He doesn’t go to the next debriefing.

 

But he sits, silently and angrily, through the entirety of the one after that.

 

\--

 

And so, the Resistance plans an assault against the First Order, Kylo plans a rescue, and Lehon draws closer on the horizon.

 

\--

 

They gave her a room in the temple. It’s not much better than the old cell. Where the cell was all cold chrome and seamless doors, the temple has been left to history-- made of stone that smells of damp and mildew, the ground dirt and cold and uneven on her back when she goes to sleep on it.

 

But tonight, she doesn’t try to sleep. She sits with her back to the wall, drawing her knees closer to her chest so she can rest her forearms on them. And tries to retrace what she saw in Snoke’s mind-- three, quick images:

 

Smoke. A temple. Fire catching to cloth, then skin.

 

Rey closes her eyes, trying to find these locations in the flow. She has no idea how long she is kept in captivity in her rooms during the day, but she images most of it is spent in her meditative trance as she tries to find the nexus.

 

As she tries to find Snoke, find what he doesn’t want her seeing.

 

Smoke. A temple. Fire catching to cloth, to skin.

 

After what feels like days, she finds the temple in the flow. Just an image, nothing around it--no memories, no ripples. Rey takes a breath, and lets her mind take her to the scene.

 

_The temple has metal grates for flooring, illuminated by a pale, yellow-green light. She steps down them, her boots making a hollow sound that echoes. Rey looks around, but the area is dark and barely lit. The halls are shaped circularly, an architectural design she isn’t familiar with but looks ancient._

 

_She walks forward. The light under her feet glows brighter, casting the halls in greys and charcoals instead of pure darkness. There is...something evil here. A feeling, more than anything, of power and the destruction and grief that follows after it._

 

_Rey moves on. Sees an image on a banner far enough away, but can’t make out the specifics of the design in the darkness. The hall leads to a pressurized, circular door that opens for her. She looks behind it to see a walkway, suspended above the floor and surrounded by huge viewports._

 

_She looks outside of them._

 

_They don’t show the beaches of Lehon, or trees, or dirt, or jungle._

 

_Instead, there’s thousands of stars in front of her--as far as she can see and unbroken by ships, docks, or planets._

 

_This isn’t a temple. It’s a space station-_

 

“Nema Ren.”

 

Her trance is broken, and she looks up to see a Stormtrooper waiting for her expectantly at the door. A riot baton in hand. She hates the name Snoke has chosen for her, refuses to respond to it. But they call her that title all the same.

 

“Training time,” the stormtrooper says dispassionately. The baton in their hand flickers with electricity and Rey wants to scream, throw a tantrum, anything to avoid training and get back to the flow--to the answer she’s almost uncovered.

 

“I’m not going,” she states, pressing the tips of her fingers into the dirt.

 

The stormtrooper sighs. This is not a new response. It steps forward, and Rey braces herself for the sting of the electricity, of being dragged back to Snoke’s sadistic training yet again.

 

\--

 

Hours later, they bring her back to the room and drop her unceremoniously on the ground. She tries to find satisfaction in the fact that Snoke was absent from this session--avoiding her. She breathes in, feeling the pain in her ribs and sides ignite with the motion. Before she can bring her (bruised, scabbed) hand to her side, she feels a weak but cooling wave of healing energy over her body and she exhales more easily.

 

Kylo.

 

She closes her eyes, feels the ribs re-knit under the roughened pads of her fingers. Her breathing eventually levels out enough for her to roll to her side, exhaustion in every cell of her body as she tries to get herself into a sit again, to enter the flow to find more answers about Snoke.

 

But she can’t. She’s weary and beaten, and rest is a precious commodity on whatever planet Snoke’s hidden her away on. The training cycle he has her on is intentionally irregular--she wouldn’t be surprised if a stormtrooper returned within an hour to take her back again. To make her test her limits to the brink until they expanded. Already, she feels the effects of her time here-- the Dark comes easier now, its division a thinner and thinner threshhold.

 

She collapses onto her side, eyes meeting the stone wall. Rey’s not defeated or broken, but she’s _hurting_ and she can understand how that hurt might manifest itself into rage or anger. She can’t let that happen. Rey has to hold close to the Light, to the knowledge that maybe, somewhere out there Kylo is safe and with the others. That they’re working to stop Snoke and the Order.

 

She inhales, staring at the wall as she tries to remember the vision. The space station. The memories of the spot in the flow are already growing hazier, and she exhales in frustration as she glares at the wall and waits for the Force to guide her to... _something._

 

\--

 

Sleep is beginning to overtake her mind, her gaze sliding away in fatigue from where it’s centered.

 

It’s then that she sees it. In the wall, there’s a brick, tucked away in the corner. It’s patched, discolored more than the others. She crawls her exhausted body closer to it, eyes narrowed as she tries to convince herself this isn’t a trick of the shadows in the room or the exhaustion of her mind.

 

But it’s not. On the brick is a stamp:

  


And Rey instantly recognizes the pattern. It’s the banner, the one just out of focus in the dark in Snoke’s memories. From the space station. It’s raised slightly more than the others, as though it was taken out, something was buried behind it, and it was replaced.

 

Frantically, she digs her fingers into the crevices around the stone, using the Force to guide the brick out further. She examines the stamp for another moment, memorizing the design, before she sets it aside and looks behind.

 

There’s another layer of thicker stone, but behind it is what looks like a scroll. With shaking hands, she grabs it. Her fingers twitch as she unrolls it, seeing unfamiliar handwriting but knowing who it’s from.

 

 _It has a name, but it’s been lost. He is the only one who knows where it is. Destroy it, Rey. Destroy_ him.

 

Rey breathes out a slow exhale.

 

_-Aalto :)_

 

And presses her forehead against the ground, slamming her fist against the earth as she fails to smother a cry of frustration.

 

\--

 

They are expected to jump into Lehon’s atmo within the day. Kylo stands alone, watching the empty space before him through the viewport. He braces his arm against the top, resting his forehead against it. He feels her pain in the bond, but not much else. Soon, _Echo of Hope_ will be punching into the atmosphere and fighters will be unleashed--a direct attack on one of Snoke’s strongholds. The Damerons and his mother are the ones meant to be coordinating that particular battlefield.

 

But that isn’t Kylo’s concern.

 

He hears footsteps behind him, but doesn’t bother to turn. It’s not until Wedge speaks that Kylo even registers who it is.

 

“What are you really doing here?” The old man asks.

 

“Go away,” is Kylo’s response.

 

An unimpressed snort, and Wedge stands beside him. He’s wearing an old flightsuit that is a little too big--as though his life has made him smaller, thinner. “You’re under Luke’s command for this,” is all he says flatly.

 

It’s a warning that means nothing to Kylo. An old, Rebellion pilot isn’t a threat or a consideration to him. “He can think so.”

 

“Is this about getting more power, then?” Wedge muses. “Sith killing their masters, or something like that?”

 

Kylo’s voice goes thick with annoyance. “I’m not here for Snoke.”

 

“I can’t imagine what else you’d be going down there for.”

 

Kylo glares, turning to face the old man with a sardonic expression. “You haven’t heard the rumors? I thought all Rogue Squadron was good for was gossip.”

 

Wedge draws his brows. “Maybe I don’t believe them.”

 

“It’s no concern to me what you believe, Antilles.”

 

“It used to be Uncle Wedge,” he says, not bothering to hide the resentment.

 

“But then I tried to kill Luke,” Kylo ends for him, not interested in getting into a discussion of the past. “Was there something you needed?”

 

“Just letting you know that I’m joining the extraction team.”

 

“Seems hardly the best place for a pilot.”

 

“But the right place for someone who wants to be between you and Luke.”

 

He isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or kill the man to his side. “You’ll only get in the way.”

 

“That’s the idea.” Wedge steps closer. “You turn on Luke, or endanger Finn or Rey, I’m not going to hesitate. It won’t be another Yavin, understand?”

 

Yavin. Kylo keeps looking out the viewport.

 

“Whatever makes you _comfortable,_ ” he says with no small amount of derision, before stomping away to his quarters where he might have a moment alone.

 

\--

 

He stares at Rey’s lightsaber, lined up on the workbench next to his. Traces it with his fingers, feels every bump and divot in the hilt. He closes his eyes and remembers their time spent in Old Ben's cabin on Tatooine. How she cleaned her lightsaber out of sight so he wouldn't see the secrets of its construction. Her annoyed explanations of how to do it right when he was preparing his own. He feels his ribs, still freshly aching from the last beating she no doubt took, and grips the lightsaber a little tighter.

 

“Hey,” Finn calls from the other side of his door, the first to not violate his personal space with threats or reprimands this past week. “It’s time to deploy. You ready?”

 

Kylo stands, grabbing his and Rey’s lightsabers, and shoves past Finn without a word.

 

\--

 

The Order isn’t ready for them. From his spot in a small, discrete cargo shuttle, Kylo watches as the cruisers and fighters bombard the facilities below them. His gaze is dispassionate, the military was always of _Hux_ ’s concern. Instead, his focus keeps to the temple. To the stormtroopers piling out of it.

 

“Landing in 10 standard minutes, beginning to descend,” Wedge says from his place in the cockpit.

 

Luke stands behind him, a hand resting on the pilot’s chair. His uncle has neither said nor looked at Kylo since they arrived for deployment.

 

“Alright.” Finn rolls his shoulders, grabs one of the arm supports hanging from the ceiling as the cargo shuttle lifts off and begins to enter a battle zone. “Let’s do this.”

 

The shuttle lurches forward. And Kylo keeps his trained on the temple’s entrance. Waiting.

 

\--

 

Rey’s trance is broken when she feels something light touch the top of her head. She looks up, seeing dust sifting down from cracks in the ceiling.

 

Then, the temple starts to shake.


	3. can't escape the gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double update weekend o7!

Rey braces herself, fingers pressed to the ground and supporting her weight as she stands in a haunch. The temple shakes again, this time more violently. The stones of her room make odd clicks against one another and the terrible, horrifying thought of being buried alive hits her. 

 

She musters up what strength she can, replacing the brick backwards in the wall--the stamp hidden from view. She shreds the letter from Aalto, burying the remnants of it quickly into the ground of her room. It won’t make that much of a difference if the letter is discovered, but the stamp she needs to keep hidden. She’s sure of that. 

 

Rey looks up, as more and more dirt falls from the ceiling and creates small, pyramid piles of dirt around her. Her mind goes back to one of the sandstorms she had to survive on Jakku, and absently she tears off one of her sleeves and ties it around her neck to become a makeshift scarf if needed. Already the dust is drying her eyes, but she blinks, moving toward the door-

 

-and it slides open in front of her. Rey balks when she comes face to face with Dolari Ren, a woman she has seen little of since her capture here in Snoke’s temple. The older woman looks drawn and distinctly unhappy. But there’s little sympathy in her gaze as she takes in Rey’s battered form.

 

“What’s going on?” Rey demands, feeling braver than she ought to without a weapon, full health, or a reserve of Force energy at her disposal.

 

“We are evacuating,” Dolari says simply. She gestures to one of the stormtroopers behind her and they part to reveal a First Order officer in uniform, a band around their arm.

 

Rey’s eyes widen when she sees what that band is. Medic. A doctor. Her worst suspicions are confirmed when the woman withdraws a silver needle, the end of it glinting in the darkness of the room.

 

“No-!” Rey protests, ready to bite or claw or whatever she can to resist being drugged.

 

Dolari only flicks forward a finger, and Rey is pressed flat to the ground on her stomach, all energy drained. She looks up, meets Dolari’s eyes.

 

“They’re here, aren’t they?” She asks.

 

Dolari gives a small nod. She opens her lips to say something, but Rey doesn’t hear it as something pinches her neck and her eyes roll up into darkness.

 

\--

 

Wedge is a better pilot than Kes, Kylo reluctantly concedes. The cargo shuttle moves like a Twi’lek dancer through the onslaught, dodging ground turbines and the scrambled TIE fighter torpedos with an ease brought only by over forty years of experience in the cockpit. 

 

A few dodges and rolls, and Kylo is ready to be sick but the transport manages to reach the beach surrounding the temple. Lehon is a beautiful planet, all things considered--white sand, crystal blue water, lush green trees. They frame the land up until the edge of the temple--a grey and silver monolith that resembles a pyramidal fin. Its entrance is flanked by a contingent of stormtroopers and deathtroopers.

 

Kylo doesn’t wait for the cargo shuttle to land before he’s extending his arm. With a clench of his fist, the door crumples then tears away-- revealing the beach below. 

 

“Hey! This is our ride back!” Finn yells at him, though he’s quick to move toward the newly formed exit himself--the two of them assigned as the advanced party.

 

Kylo ignores him, and the pair of old men, in favor of jumping. He uses the Force to dampen his descent, knees bending to absorb impact and sand flying around his boots. Finn drops next to him, rolling into a defensive crouch and igniting his lightsaber. The golden glow breaks the white expanse of sand, and Kylo is quick to add his own scar of color, lightsaber igniting purple.

 

It takes less than a second for the pair of them to be in the stormtroopers’ targets, but Kylo raises his hand and erects a Force barrier. The blaster shots deflect, some ricocheting to hit the approaching soldiers. Kylo directs more power into the barrier, the energy of it forcing his movements to slow and for more stormtroopers to direct their aim.

 

“Nice, keep it up!” Finn says, and the last thing Kylo wants to hear is  _ encouragement  _ from FN-2187 as he grits his teeth from the strain.

 

The stormtrooper-turned-Jedi disengages his lightsaber in favor of the heavy blaster strapped to his back. Kylo watches, keeping track of how many he’s able to fell. He was a decentl enough shot. For a stormtrooper.

 

By the time they reach the threshhold of the temple, about half the guarding forces remain, the body littered with troops that have small, pristine circles embedded in their armor--either from Kylo’s ricocheted blasts or Finn’s shooting. He can end this, clear a path. But the strain from shielding is cumbersome.

 

“I’m going to have to drop the barrier,” he explains. A small part of him wonders why he bothers to give Finn the warning.

 

“Got it,” Finn states, rolling and crouching behind a fallen turret for cover.

 

Taking a low breath, Kylo drops the barrier. Before the stormtroopers can take aim, he’s raising his arm. He lifts one bodily off the ground, a good fifteen or so feet, before he swings, using the Force to hurl the trooper at its companions. They cry out as the body launches through them, but Kylo has already turned his attention to another group. He extends his hand, sending a shockwave of energy that launches them into the air. With another pull, they rocket to the ground, then are still.

 

He hears the light whistle of a grenade, snags it mid-air with the Force, and launches it at a nearby turret. It screams as it explodes, catching fire before falling limp.

 

Kylo turns as he hears an electric hiss, seeing that Finn’s engaged a trio of stormtroopers in melee--their electricized batons against his lightsaber. The younger man’s movements betray his lack of experience with the lightsaber, but the disadvantage is made up by the extensive physical training he’s had throughout his life as a soldier. Kylo watches dispassionately as Finn drops one, then another. He turns before seeing the result of the final one, instead walking toward the entrance of the temple.

 

His hands make claws as he snuffs the air from stormtroopers’ lungs, about five of them fall with the motion. Another draw of his arm, and three more collapse to the ground in splays of limbs at odd angles. He doesn’t care. Kylo keeps staring at the door ahead of him, willing it to open. Willing it to reveal Rey.

 

And Snoke.

 

“We’re clear!” Finn calls into their shared responders. 

 

At the notice, the cargo shuttle flies closer to the temple’s entrance and lands, Luke exiting as Wedge powers down its systems. The wind blows through his dark robes, his bearded face solemn. He takes a slow look around the quick carnage they’ve made of the beach. About thirty stormtroopers, killed in as many seconds. 

 

It’s the price for being in his way--former loyalties a far second to Kylo’s current objective.

 

Kylo makes it to the door of the temple, scowling at the lack of seal, console, or power grid. In an impatient move, he drives the blade of his lightsaber into the center of it, up to the hilt. But the stone is thick, and his disengages it with a growl of frustration.

 

“Open it,” he yells at Finn, simply because he is closest.

 

Finn doesn’t seem to hear him, his gaze trained up at the sky. “We’re about to have a  _ big  _ problem.”

 

“ _ What _ -” he snarls, but his voice trails off as the suddenly sunny beach becomes cast in shadow.

Slowly, he looks up. A large, triangular shadow moves to block out the sun, hovering above the pointed top of the temple.

 

“Fuck,” Wedge mutters as he runs to meet up with the rest of the group. “Please tell me I’m not seeing an Imperial star destroyer in atmo?”

 

Luke frowns, voice distant. “It’s not ideal.”

 

Kylo glares at it defiantly. He knows this ship. He’s  _ lived  _ on this ship.

 

“It’s  _ The Finalizer, _ ” he bites out. 

 

Finn looks at him, face falling. “How could it get here so fast?!”

 

Kylo clenches his jaw. He looks at his uncle, who seems to instantly understand. “Get this door open,” is all he manages.

 

“Yeah, but how-?”

 

“Snoke has a seer,” Luke says quietly, folding his hands into his sleeves.

 

Finn’s lips part. “But that’s…”

 

“She’s being tortured,” Kylo grinds out. Wanting to scream. Wanting to unleash his anger but restraining it at the barest limit. “Snoke probably saw something he wanted to know.”

 

“Stand back,” Luke says, moving to the temple’s giant doors. “We don’t have much time.”

 

Kylo bites down the accusations he wants to throw at the old man--that this is his fault, somehow. That they waited too long. But there’s  _ no use  _ to it right now. So he compresses his anger into something hard and takes a step to the side.

 

Luke takes his place, hand outstretched until his palm hovers above the cragged hole Kylo carved out with his lightsaber. He takes a breath, his eyes fluttering closed.

 

And Kylo still doesn’t see it, but this time he  _ feels  _ it. His uncle’s presence in the Force expands, travelling down lines he can’t comprehend but nevertheless knows exist. They travel through the stone, the mud, the circuits, until his uncle’s presence seems to embody the entire temple-- the essence of it a map clear and right. 

 

“Finn,” Luke orders, pointing to a small duct to the right of their feet. “ _ There _ .”

 

Finn nods, moving around Kylo and repeating the same trance-like state his uncle has just entered. Kylo feels resentment--cold and unyielding--form in his chest. That Finn can do what he can’t--that what Kylo  _ can’t  _ do is make a door.

 

Finn extends two fingers, and touches a small part of a brick.

 

The stone, and about twenty more surrounding it, shatter. The debris reveals an empty passageway, lined with sand-colored stone and illuminated by  _ torches  _ of all things.

 

Kylo storms in, lightsaber drawn and ready to remove anyone foolish enough to place themselves in his path.

 

\--

 

He knows this temple--as well as it’s possible to know it. The original builders, a species long lost to history, were fond of traps, circles. The fact that the building keeps  _ shaking  _ as they get hit by spare fire from the atmospheric battle above  doesn’t make wayfinding any simpler. The light from his, Finn’s, and Luke’s lightsabers cast odd colored shadows in the darkness. Wedge, Kylo notices, is keeping point and not moving. Prepared to shoot Kylo in the back should the occasion necessitate itself, no doubt.

 

“Can you hear her?” Finn asks to his side, and Kylo hates the  _ pleading  _ note to it. “In your...bond? Or whatever? Is she there?”

 

He doesn’t want to answer him. He doesn’t want to tell him that the bond doesn’t work the way it used to since her capture and Luke’s resuscitation from the flow. That Rey had sacrificed part of it to get enough power to save her old Master. All he feels is Rey’s pain, her scars, her bruises. There is a slight ache in his neck and that is all he knows of her or her condition.

 

It terrifies him. 

 

_ Maybe she’s already- _

 

He silences the Dark, the Fear, before it can get ahold of him. 

 

Instead of an answer, he increases his speed. He has no desire to talk to Finn, or Luke, or anyone except for Rey. 

 

_ Where are you?  _ He asks, hating the silence that is his only answer.

 

“She’s alive,” he hears his uncle reassure Finn behind him. “...And so is Snoke.”

 

Kylo’s fingers tighten their grip on the lightsaber. He thinks of his new scars, the new markings on Ben Kanata’s room.

 

“Not for long.”

 

\--

 

The four of them fight their way to a console room. Finn immediately rushes to one, using splicing skills that Kylo knows aren’t regulation for stormtrooper training.

 

“There’s a call for evacuation,” he says, stating the obvious and Kylo feels his jaw clench. He scans through some files-

 

“Go. Faster.” He says through his teeth.

 

Finn sneers. “Like this is easy-” his fingers pause. “I think I got her.” A longer pause, and an odd tension washes over Finn’s frame. His lips part, jaw slack. His shoulders sink down.

 

Kylo storms over, grabbing him by the arm. “What did you see?!” 

 

Finn sends Luke a glance, one he apparently understands. Kylo snarls, shoving Finn away to get to the console, but the former stormtrooper smashes out of the screen with the heel of his fist. 

 

“ _ What was it _ ?!” He demands again, feeling heat accumulate in his hands, the urge to raise them and lash out barely controllable.

 

“We don’t have time for you to lose your head!” Finn yells, shoving Kylo away from him. “They’re going to the docks on the east side of the Temple,  _ let’s move _ !  **_Fast_ ** !”

 

Luke is the first to leave, Wedge following closely after him. Kylo glares at Finn, trying to reach in his mind and see what he’s hiding from him--

 

\--and recoils at the vicious wall that slams down between them.

 

“Do that again and I’ll shoot you,” Finn promises, sending him a dark look before he begins running.

 

Frustrated, and most of all afraid, Kylo follows because there is little else he can do.

 

\--

 

They fight their way toward the docking bay of the temple. The further east they go, the more renovated the halls. Stone walls give way to metal, ancient sliding doors to pressurized locks. 

 

“Should be one more room to go through,” Finn instructs, reading a datapad unit strapped to his arm. “And then the docks. The last transport hasn’t left yet.”

 

They approach a final door, and Kylo doesn’t realize his mistake. He is too impatient, too reckless. He wants this  _ over  _ and he wants Rey back more than he is aware of his surroundings. Of the presence beyond the door. Of what that presence means.

 

“Kylo, don’t-!” Finn calls.

 

He doesn’t listen, and as he goes to Force open the door, he hears Finn taking a step back. 

 

There’s a metallic noise, the doors part.

 

And Dolari Ren stands before them. To her side is a pillar, on top of it a black orb glowing purple around its edges. Kylo swallows. He knows it’s sun matter.

 

In her other hand she holds her lightsaber. It’s short, pitch black and lined in the same electric purple as the sun matter. Dolari grips it lightly in a reverse hold, not unlike a tonfa.

 

Her eyes flicker up and meet Kylo’s directly.

 

“I wish you would stop,” she admonishes.

 

“Where’s Rey?”

 

Dolari shakes her head. Before he can attack, she holds him in place with her power. Then, she clenches the hand above the dome of sun matter, the energy rolling into her palm. Without breaking eye contact, she brings her hand to her mouth and  _ eats  _ it, the edge of her blade growing brighter with the consumption.

 

“This has to end, Ben. I’m sorry.” She sounds like she means it. Her normally warm, brown eyes are glowing as her body processes the excess energy within her.

 

He tries to draw his lightsaber, but he can’t. He can’t move. 

 

Dolari raises her hand, and a pulse of dark matter shoots from it. Kylo glares at it, as if he could banish energy from a  _ sun  _ with the strength of his will. The energy flies closer, prepared to kill him-

 

When a slightly veined hand grabs it instead, slowly morphing it back into an orb that is held in the palm of its hand.

 

Dolari’s eyes widen as his uncle steps between them, his dark robe falling from his shoulders to reveal a Jedi Master’s tunic. “It’s...you…” she whispers.

 

“Hello, Dolari,” Luke says impassively. He is the picture of calm, though Kylo knows that the energy he is holding at bay must be straining him. “Finn, go to the docks. There isn’t enough time.”

 

“Wait!” Kylo snarls.

 

“We can’t,” Luke says sadly, quietly. His back is still to Kylo as he addresses Dolari. “..how much time do we have?”

 

Dolari’s expression has softened upon seeing her old-- _ their  _ old Master. “It’s me or that shuttle,” she whispers.

 

“Let go!” Kylo screams, fighting against the hold she has on him, the energy she is consuming from his Force presence.

 

“I can’t do that, Ben.” Dolari’s words are gentle--a marked contrast to the unrelenting paralysis she is holding him in. “We all have loved ones we must protect. And thanks to you, Snoke now knows where mine is.”

 

“Finn,” Luke instructs again, more urgent.

 

Kylo manages enough strength to look over his shoulder. Finn meets his eyes.

 

“I’ll get her,” he promises. 

 

“Wedge, go with him,” Luke says through a strained breath. “They’ll need you more than us.”

 

“Luke-”

 

“ _ Go _ ,” Luke instructs kindly but firmly. 

 

Wedge swears, but after a moment, Kylo hears two sets of footfalls running down the opposite corridor. Toward the docks. Toward Rey.  _ And he is left  _ **_behind_ ** .

 

“Ben,” Luke says, “I’ll buy you as much time as I can. But you have to break the paralysis on your own.”

 

“What are you talking about?!” Kylo demands, even as he fights staggering to a knee. “I’m getting to the dock-”

 

“No. You’re not,” Dolari states, drawing down her tonfa-like saber. 

 

The doors slide and close behind him. 

 

Soon, it is just Kylo, Dolari, and the old Master they’ve betrayed.

 

\--

 

Rey wakes up to the sound of a low hum. Groggily, she tries to open her eyes, her head spinning. She’s been stripped down to her basic training outfit of a sleeveless tunic and form-fitted shorts, no holsters, belts, layers, or shoes. Her hair is in a tangled mat around her shoulders, as though someone aggressively combed through it--likely for hidden weapons. 

 

Whatever drug Dolari has given her is potent. She can’t move from where she’s curled up on the ground. Instead, all she can manage is tilting her head back far enough to see above her.

 

She’s at the bottom of a containment cell. The hum the sound of the force field generated around her. Rey groans, trying again to stand, but after a few moments of pain all she can manage is a sit, her legs sprawled uselessly in front of her.

 

“So you’re awake,” comes an accent not unlike her own.

 

Rey blinks away the fogginess, forcing her gaze to focus. To the left of her cell is a console. In front of it is a pale man in a crisp, black uniform. Scrolling through a datapad. He spares her the quickest, disinterested glance as his lips press tightly together. His red hair is combed back from his forehead.

 

She recognizes him, she thinks. From the dossiers. 

 

“Hux?” She rasps.

 

The sound of his name draws a slight pull to his upper lip. “ _ Admiral  _ Hux. Though that’s of little consequence to someone in your position, I’m afraid.” 

 

He turns to fully face her, and she notices that his jacket hangs on his shoulders rather than being sleeved. He tugs on the edge of one of his leather gloves, pulling it tighter against his skin.

 

“I merely wanted to personally meet the curiosity face to face before it’s too late.”

 

Rey winces, head still hurting. “What do you mean?”

 

His gaze is cold as he takes stock of her, her containment cell. With a sniff of derision, he turns and makes for the exit to the prison. Before he keys in the access code, he looks at her over his shoulder.

 

“Do try to rest well.”

 

Rey’s brows furrow in confusion. 

 

And Hux smiles. A stiff and heartless expression.

 

“You’re slated for execution the moment the  _ Finalizer  _ is approved to exit orbit.”

 

The door slides open, then closed. And Rey is left, imprisoned and alone.


	4. it's thunder and it's lightning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIPDATE! Thank you all so much for your comments on the previous two chapters, I'll get to responding to them all shortly <3 WE'RE ON A RIDE TO THE END \o\

If she has guards, they’re stationed outside the prisoner’s chamber. Rey gives the cell a futile shove with her forearm, but the forcefield doesn’t break or disrupt. Exhausted, she slumps down the side of the cell, tilting her head to rest back against it. Rey closes her eyes, linking her fingers together.

 

She’d gone too far with Snoke. Resistance was one thing, but the brush of her fingers against his mind had been a deliberate threat. A challenge. From what she knew about the Knights of Ren, power struggles didn’t go unchecked. In that one action, she had shifted herself from a valuable tool to an unacceptable risk. 

 

It...was a little satisfying, in all honesty. Execution order notwithstanding. 

 

But she still has to escape. Quietly, Rey tries to piece together what intel she can from Hux’s comments. They were on board the  _ Finalizer,  _ which Rey remembered from debriefings was the flagship of the First Order. If they were waiting for approval, it likely meant they were docked above Lehon.

 

She sighs, opening her eyes and looking at the ceiling. If they’re docked, they’re waiting for something. Someone. 

 

Her heart thrums.

 

Snoke. They were waiting for Snoke to board. Likely he wanted to execute her personally, the physical proof of six months’ worth of failed experiment. Rey rubs her thumbs over her knuckles. She could…

 

Maybe she could kill him. 

 

Rey doesn’t know what to think of that, her hands shaking a little at the possibility. If she could get close enough to him...

 

It’d end things, maybe forever. Or maybe he’d kill her. But it’s a risk worth taking, she’s sure of it.

 

In the back of her head, she hears a small voice. One full of violent protest. She does her best to ignore it, instead bringing a thumb to her lips. She bites down on the fleshy part of it, eyes glancing upward. 

 

But it won’t matter, one way or the other, if she’s stuck in this cell. For the last hour, she’s done what she can to break the field--she’s tried to toggle off the emitters by the console, smash through the top of the cell or pry out from the bottom. Nothing has worked.

 

“Force,” Rey swears in frustration, hitting the back of her head against the wall. Once, twice. On the third bump, she notices something on the ceiling of her cell. Etched into the metal.

 

Her eyes narrow as she makes out a message carved into the hub of the containment cell.

 

_ Remember last time? :)  _

 

Rey frowns, not knowing what this means. But she’s deeply, deeply annoyed at the man she’s murdered. 

 

She takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose.

 

“Last time,” she whispers. “Last time…”

 

Rey closes her eyes, opens up her mind to the flow. After a few failed paths, she thinks she finds it.

 

_ She’s in a different cell. She’s suspended by a harness, life support, and the bacta tank’s breathing apparatus. Rey jerks awake, eyes meeting Aalto’s as he stands on the other side of the glass. _

 

_ She’s...before. When Janara kidnapped her. _

 

_ “Almost,” Aalto promises. He looks sadder than she remembers him being, the first time. “You’re almost there.” _

 

_ She can’t ask him anything, with the breathing apparatus in her mouth. So she just frowns, concerned, when he presses his forehead against the tank--just a little bit above where her own hangs suspended. _

 

_ He sighs, and it sounds relaxed. She understands why now.  _

 

_ In her mind, she remembers the reaction. She looks at the tank, and tries to feel  _ it  _ in the Force. The fault lines, the nexes and nodes. After a moment, she presses hard enough with her mind and a hairline crack occurs in the glass. _

 

_ “Getting warmer, Rey.”  _

 

_ Like before, he extends a hand toward her support connectors, the machines that are keeping her alive. _

 

_ “I was patient for you,” he whispers. And she watches from where she’s submerged. This is deviating from the original path--a different step they could have taken. “You’ve seen the symbol?” _

 

_ He sends the picture of the stamp to her mind. Rey nods. _

 

_ He closes his eyes. “You must take it from Snoke. You need to break these chains.” _

 

_ His fingers curl into a fist, once again. “Remember this feeling, Rey. The need to survive _ . _ ” _

 

_ And then Aalto rips the cords. Rey feels the breath (that is not real, that is air she’s already breathed) leave her. _

 

_ Her mind pries at the crack she’s made. She tries to make a splinter. _

 

_ Aalto hesitates longer than he did in the real memory. Before he gives a small wink. “See you soon.” _

 

_ Rey  _ fights.

 

_ And the tank cracks. Splinters.  _ Shatters.

 

\--

 

Rey comes to with a snap, her mind clear. She pushes herself into a stance, looking at the pulsing, interlocked currents of the yellow forcefield before her. They are threads, they are fault lines. Just like everything else.

 

Rey swallows, extending her hand until her palm rests against the forcefield. It hums under her touch, a low vibration travelling throughout her entire body. 

 

_ “Breathe,”  _ Luke had told her once. “ _ Just breathe. _ ”

 

Rey takes a long inhale. Holds it.

 

On her exhale, the forcefield overloads--a short hiss of electricity, a quick sputter of rerouted currents.

 

And then it explodes.

 

\--

 

He  _ can’t do anything.  _

 

Luke stands between him and Dolari. The younger Knight of Ren meets his gaze from over his uncle’s shoulder. Her irises have gone completely black, framed in a light purple that matches the halo around the sun matter she’s partially consumed.

 

“How many died for that energy, Dolari?” Luke’s voice is gentle, the back of his head tilted in a way lets Kylo assume he’s staring at the pillar as well. “How many planets are gone?”

 

Kylo remembers when Dolari used to cry over a withered plant. Now she just meets his stare hollowly. “All are one with the Force, in the end.”

 

With a groan of pain, Kylo watches his uncle tuck his fingers into his palm--the dark energy is smothered, pressed into his skin until it disappears. Kylo has no idea what the technique is, but he remembers seeing it when they were children. When he had spied on the others’ lessons, convinced his were intentionally missing something. That Luke was trying to hold him back.

 

“That’s not how you really feel,” Luke states to Dolari. Calmly. Understanding. “We don’t have to fight here.”

 

Dolari finally turns her attention from him to his uncle. She bites down hard on her lower lip. “No, Master Luke, I’m afraid we do.”

 

Luke doesn’t move, and it occurs to Kylo that he’s standing as a barrier between him and Dolari. “It’s not too late.”

 

“I can’t let either of you leave this temple.” 

 

At her words, Dolari’s feet start to rise from the ground. The heels of her boots first, then the toes, until she is hanging in suspended motion. The sun matter she’s consumed begins to radiate from her, dark purple currents lashing out from her body like the licks of flames or the winds of storms. 

 

He remembers when her powers first manifested. He used to help her replant her gardens every spring when they always,  _ always  _ failed. How she had tried to become a Jedi Healer, but the hunger that never went away always consumed instead. The dead planets. Then the dead animals. And then…

 

“Try to fight it,” Luke says quietly to him, as Dolari ascends and amasses power. “I’ll buy you time.”

 

“I don’t need your help,” Kylo spits, immobile due to the hold Dolari has over him.

 

Luke opens his mouth to say something, but instead only sighs and gives a light shake of his head. “Breathe. Focus. And it will break.”

 

Useless.  _ Breathing  _ has never helped Kylo with anything. He glares at the back of his uncle while simultaneously trying to free movement to his limbs. It’s to no avail, they stay, frozen, in the trance Dolari has put over him.

 

“Move aside,” Dolari commands, “And I’ll let you leave.” She juts her chin at an immobile Kylo. “I only have orders to kill him.”

 

Luke shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that.” He folds his arms lightly in front of his stomach, the thumbs pressing together. “Come back to the Light, Dolari. And we can end Snoke together.”

 

The words are not what Dolari wants to hear. “The  _ Light _ ’s done nothing on its own,” she accuses, voice warbling slightly. She lifts up the arm holding her lightsaber. “I want you to know I still respect you, but you’ve forced my hand.”

 

Luke doesn’t move. “If that’s what you believe.”

 

Kylo watches as the small lightsaber starts to glow more intensely, as the edges of light around Dolari’s eyes spread into spider cracks out to her temples. He swears, fighting through her hold. It’s like tearing through molasses--for all his strength, his back hunches forward but his feet stay rooted. A simple, easy, and pathetic target.

 

Dolari points her lightsaber. It serves as a conduit, drawing from the skin of Dolari’s fingers around the hilt and charging. In a moment it will fire.

 

“Move!” He shouts at Luke, who is being a complete, motionless idiot.

 

In response, Luke simply rolls up his sleeves--still standing between him and Dolari.

 

The energy hosted on the lightsaber expands,  _ fires,  _ sailing through the space of the room and heading directly toward Kylo.

 

Luke raises up his arms, palms flat and facing Dolari. The energy collides with them. His uncle slides back a few feet under the force of Dolari’s stolen power. For a moment, nothing happens. 

 

Then, Kylo hears him take a small breath.

 

And the energy he’s blocked returns, aimed straight at Dolari. She has enough time to give a short cry as it connects, knocking her from her levitating position to the floor of the chamber. The resistance on Kylo weakens enough for him to raise an arm and draw his lightsaber.

 

Luke doesn’t draw his own, instead keeping his stance. There is a slight pant to his breaths, but he watches Dolari warily.

 

She springs up, hand outstretched and the sun matter energy flares again. It engulfs her body, burning at the edges of her black robes that still look so much like a Jedi’s.

 

“Luke,” she says quietly. And Kylo hears the begging in it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

 

“I know.”

 

She lets out a cry of frustration, bringing both her hand and lightsaber out in front of her. The flare explodes outward, rushing toward them. Luke moves far faster than Kylo ever expected him to, erecting barriers in the Force that act like a shield. The sun matter crashes against them in a wave Kylo feels the heat of, overpowered and  _ burning  _ in their electric purple light. It smashes against the light blue of the Force barriers, violent waves trying to reach past the shore.

 

Luke’s breath comes in a little less steady. His weight is clearly supported on one leg as the other begins to cave into a bend.

 

_ Move,  _ Kylo screams at himself.  **_Move!_ **

 

One of his feet inch forward.

 

Dolari lets out a huff of frustration, and moves the heel of her boot in a large arch on the ground in front of her. The motion makes another charge of sun matter flare and expand, rolling toward them as though on a wave.

 

“Get out of the way!” Kylo screams at Luke.

 

But the old man doesn’t move, and the Force wave hits, causing Luke to let out a breath and stagger to his side-

 

-and Dolari launches another wave of matter. It hits as well, shoving his uncle into the ground.

 

He makes a sound he doesn’t recognize at seeing Luke fall to the ground, throwing the weapon in his free hand at her. The lightsaber, the same hue as her own energy, sails through the empty space, and Dolari’s eyes widen as she ducks down, just in time to avoid a beheading. Kylo’s brows draw, trying to call it back, but Dolari snuffs the energy from him like a candle, the paralysis field intensifying once more. He hears a light  _ thunk  _ of metal against the floor as his lightsaber hilt drops.

 

Luke disperses the energy, standing up with labored breaths. He looks at Kylo, and he sees something foreign in his uncle’s eyes--something light and forgotten.

 

“Getting through?”

 

Kylo snarls.

 

And the corners of Luke’s lips twitch, just a little, before he straightens into a full stand. Kylo and Dolari both watch, waiting for him to grab the lightsaber clipped to his side.

 

He doesn’t.

 

Dolari stares at him, somewhat nervously, then Kylo. Her expression hardens on him, shaking hands gripping her lightsaber and preparing to aim it again. But Kylo senses what she’s trying to hide--the burst of energy from the sun matter is waning. Soon she’ll need to feed again. And her options are the only two other life forms in the room.

 

She grips her lightsaber in its tonfa-like hold, pivoting to face Kylo. She looks at his paralyzed form, then Luke, who is still standing completely still.

 

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes to Kylo. “But I have to kill you. Or he’ll send forces to Naboo.” 

 

Kylo understands. But he also won’t let her. His fingers curl, trying to summon more energy. There’s a hot, prickly feeling forming in his palm. The beginnings of Force lightning spark at the tips of his fingers.

 

“On your first day at the praxeum, you didn’t cry.” Luke’s voice cuts across them both, low but clear. “Or hide. The first thing you wanted to do was make friends.” Luke takes a step forward, his arms limp at his sides and unprepared to strike or defend. “You were protective of Aalto and Ava the most. The youngest of them.”

 

“What are you doing?” Dolari demands sharply, pivoting.

 

“And as your powers in the Force grew, I knew you were hurting. I saw the pain of your wound, but there was nothing I could do to fix it. For that I’m sorry.” He takes another step forward as Dolari tightens her grip on the lightsaber. “I tried, I kept trying.” Luke’s voice softens. “It wasn’t enough.”

 

Dolari shakes her head. The two beads, the ones from her padawan days that she’s never given up, clack together. “I told you I don’t want to involve you-”

 

“And then Ava was killed. And Snoke’s tried to make you into something you’re not.” Luke’s eyes are hard, as he takes another step forward. Eventually, he is close enough to reach out and rest his hand on Dolari’s forearm. “I’m sorry we lost them,” he whispers. “I’m sorry  _ I  _ lost them.”

 

Dolari surprises them both by shoving him away, then drawing her lightsaber out in a quick, horizontal slash. The edge of it catches Luke’s arm as he’s too slow to draw away, and the putrid smell of burned flesh and cloth hits the air.

 

“Apologies aren’t going to do anything!” She cries out, and before anyone can move she draws out her arm again and Force shoves Luke. 

 

He’s lifted up, his body flying through the air and hitting the opposite stone wall with a heavy sound before he slides to the floor.

 

Kylo doesn’t scream, but he  _ reacts.  _ Lightning is in his grip and then launched directly at Dolari. It lands-- a solid, perfectly aimed strike in the center of her chest. She gives a sound caught between a cough and a wheeze and Kylo feels his other arm break free of paralysis.

 

She staggers back, lighting visibly flickering underneath her skin. When she looks up, the patient, friendly woman Kylo grew up with is gone. Instead there’s something dark and poisonous, something full of hatred.

 

“This is  _ your  _ fault!” She screams, as the lighting is absorbed and consumed by her unending hunger. “ _ You  _ are why he changed us!” 

 

Dolari pulls back one of her arms and then pushes it forward-- a dark wave falls over Kylo and he doubles over from the pain of it. The sensation reminds him of being hit by Snoke’s lightning bolts during training, but it’s different. Colder. It’s not the presence of pain but the absence of power as Dolari consumes his presence in the Force.

 

“ **_You’re_ ** why he knows about Orin!” 

 

Kylo ignores her anger and the coldness seeping through him and his uncle’s prone, motionless body in favor of calling to his lightsaber in the Force. He senses it, across the chamber, and  _ pulls  _ with all his might.

 

Just as Dolari is about to send another wave of dark, consuming Force through him, his lightsaber rises from the ground. It ignites, spins--

 

And part of its blade brushes Dolari’s side before it returns to Kylo’s grip.

 

She screams in pain, and Kylo’s legs are freed. Without wasting a moment, he somersaults into the air, evading her Force attack. He makes his descent part of his strike against her, and Dolari looks up and blocks with her forearm. Violet and darksaber connect, hissing in an angry motion.

 

“You were the only one he ever cared about helping,” Dolari says softly but with still-lingering hatred. “And all these years, you didn’t care about the rest of us. Only yourself.”

Kylo grits his teeth, pushing down harder with his lightsaber. She bears the weight, though she begins to  go into a backbend at the strength behind it. 

 

“He experimented on all of us, but you’re the only one who ever got better.” Tears of frustration are forming in her eyes. 

 

She breaks the strike, and the two of them begin to spar, lightsaber to lightsaber. Her movements are far faster than his, her lightsaber aimed as quick strikes while his tries to cleave. 

 

“Janara’s body was still broken…” Dolari kneels down low, swipes her lightsaber at his ankles. He barely avoids it. “Aalto’s mind was still lost…” She puts her weight on her hands in order to aim a kick underneath his chin. It connects, and he falls back. “And I…”

 

She Force shoves him, and he feels his back slam against a wall. The air leaves his lungs as he fights to maintain his grip on the lightsaber.

 

“ **_I’m still hungry!_ ** ”

 

Dolari extends her hand, and Kylo prepares himself for her to reach, to tear away and feed on what energy he has left in the Force. To try and drain and kill him-

 

But a hand grabs Dolari’s fingers in the air, instead. 

 

Kylo sags to the ground as Dolari’s eyes widen in horror. They both stare at Luke, as he holds Dolari’s hand and feeds her wound in the Force with his own essence. His body staggers, but he doesn’t release his grip--standing his ground in the spot meant for Kylo.

 

“Let go, Dolari,” he manages, his skin going paler and paler. “Let it all go.”

 

She struggles, at first, she tries to pry her hand away from his. But Luke holds firm, meeting her gaze with his own. His shoulders slump down--the fact that he is still standing a testament to his strength in the Force.

 

“You know I can’t!” She cries.

 

“You can,” he gently insists, starting to slump forward.

 

“You...you  _ gave up on me!” _ She accuses, failing to suppress a sob as she falls to her knees, pressing the heel of her opposite hand to her eyes. 

 

“No,” Luke whispers, falling with her as he can no longer support his body on his own. Hand still around hers, he brings his opposite arm around her tightly in a hug.

 

His next words echo throughout the entire chamber: “I never gave up on any of you.”

 

Kylo slowly pushes himself away from where he was held to the wall. And Dolari openly cries, fingers curling into Luke’s veined hand. She presses her face into his shoulder as Luke finally lets go of his hold on her to run weak, numb fingers paternally through her hair. He takes a ragged inhale, closes his eyes, and brushes a finger over Dolari’s temple. 

 

She collapses, asleep instantly.

 

Unable to move from his spot on the ground, Luke meets Kylo’s gaze over Dolari’s shoulder. His eyes are red-rimmed.

 

“Not a single one of you,” Luke chokes out.

 

After a long moment, Kylo switches off his lightsaber. 

Then he looks away, swallowing hard.

 

\--

 

Her lungs feel like they’re stabbing her chest as she rounds a corner, going so fast that she skids without the traction of boots. Alarms are blaring throughout all of the ship, red lights flashing and disorientating. Before fleeing the prison, she’d taken a moment to tear fabric from what was left of her tunic and shorts, creating makeshift wraps for her feet and hands should she need to fight. 

 

A quiet escape like the last time she was imprisoned by the First Order isn’t going to happen. Not until she finds a place to lie low. So Rey runs, arms and legs pumping furiously as she lets her instincts guide her--

 

\--straight into a squad of stormtroopers. 

 

She stops, body pitching forward as she looks at the formation before her. Their backs, thankfully, are turned toward her as they face the opposite direction while marching. Rey grimaces, tiptoeing as stealthily as she can back behind the corridor she just left, prepared to sneak away.

 

From behind, someone grabs her arm.

 

Without thinking, she brings her elbow to the assailant’s stomach, connecting with it then driving her elbow up to their solar plexus. There’s an “oof” of pain in her ear, and she rounds, fully intent on breaking the person’s nose when--

 

Wedge Antilles lets out a low, strained gasp of pain, doubling over.

 

Rey’s eyes widen in disbelief, and she looks past him, where Finn is staring at her like she’s a miracle--the pair of them in Resistance flightgear. She opens her mouth, but Finn presses a finger to his lips, gesturing toward a side storage room with his chin. Rey smiles like she hasn’t in months, before she nods and follows after him, Wedge trailing after--Rey offers him an apologetic look for the thrown elbow.

 

The storage room slides open, then closed. And Rey launches herself into Finn’s arms just as Wedge allows himself a violent fit of coughing.

 

“You’re alive!” Rey cries out, eyes watering.

 

“I’m not the one held up in a First Order prison,” he says into her neck, his arms tightening around her. She feels there’s a lot he wants to say--or yell--at her, but after a moment he settles on. “What the hell are you wearing?”

 

Rey snorts, relishing Finn’s warmth before she reluctantly parts from him. “There’s a lot that’s happened.” She keeps her grip firm on his arms, looking him in the eyes as concern fills her. “Where’s Kylo?”

 

Finn’s face takes on one of guilt, and Rey can feel her heart speed up-

 

“With Luke,” Wedge interjects calmly. “Back at the temple.”

 

“He’s  _ here _ ?”

 

Finn smiles, though it’s edged with something sad. “We’re the rescue team.” He reluctantly lets go of her arm, typing something in on the datapad strapped to his arm. “So let’s get off this creepy ship, yeah?”

 

She surprises them both by shaking her head. “No.”

 

Finn sends her an incredulous look. “What do you mean,  _ no _ ?”

 

Rey juts her chin. “Snoke is somewhere on this ship.”

 

“ _ And _ ?”

 

Rey ties her messy cloud of hair behind her. “We can end this. Here and now--” she looks at Finn imploringly, begging him to trust in her. “We can get Snoke.” 

 

Finn takes in her battered form, her frailer body. “Rey…”

 

“He has something,” she insists. “In his mind, a secret he didn’t want me to know.” She braces her hands on Finn’s shoulders. “Something he was willing to kill me for finding out.” 

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

Rey shakes her head, trying to find a way to explain it to him as quickly as possible. Coming up short, she instead grips him tighter. “Trust me?”

 

Finn looks at her. Then over her shoulder where Wedge has stood suspiciously silent, dark eyes calculating.

 

“Damn it, Rey,” Finn mutters. He shrugs off his jacket, offering it to her in a motion similar to the one from years ago. His own, sleeveless shirt reveals a tattoo she doesn’t remember him having six months ago…

 

...and also a lightsaber at his belt.

 

Rey tosses it on, the insulation an instant relief, as she numbly eyes Finn’s new weapon. “When did you-?”

 

“Don’t worry about it right now,” he cuts her off, unclipping his weapon and offering the hilt to her. “And at least take the lightsaber if we’re going on a suicide-slash-assassination mission.”

 

She smiles, her fingers wrapping around the metal. Like its owner, the hilt is sturdy and emanates warmth. “What about you?”

 

He points over his shoulder, where his blaster is strapped. “Not exactly defenseless.” He looks over her shoulder, and Rey turns so that they’re both facing Wedge. “You in?”

 

“We need to get back to Luke,” he states.

 

“We might not get another chance,” Rey whispers. At seeing his stoic expression change, she makes a frown of her own. “What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”

 

Finn sighs. “We...left them with Dolari.”

 

Rey’s entire body goes cold. Her mind goes back to being pressed in the mud, powerless, as Dolari took her and sent her to the First Order. “But she’s-!”

 

“We know,” Wedge interrupts, face still stern. “But it was a sacrifice they were willing to make to make sure  _ you  _ escaped.”

 

Rey winces, closing her eyes. She tries to find Kylo in the bond, but all there is are so many aches and pains that she no longer knows which ones are hers and which are his. She swallows. 

 

She knows what she needs to do. For both of them. 

 

“This doesn’t end until we get Snoke,” she whispers, eyes flickering up to meet Wedge’s. “It’s what I have to do, I’m sorry.”

 

“Rey…” Finn protests weakly.

 

She swallows. “If you want to go back, you should.” Because she might not be able to. “I won’t blame you. Neither will Luke.” 

 

She pointedly avoids thinking of Kylo, of what his reaction would be to her planning to after Snoke, alone. Her heart beats harshly against her chest and she knows whatever time she has left will be spent being sorry to him and for how she’s failing him in this moment. 

 

But this is where they’ve brought her. This is the path she needs to walk to the end. 

 

Wedge stares at her for a long time. When he doesn’t say anything, Finn takes a step closer to her. A voiceless show of support that she’s going to be eternally grateful for.

 

Finally, something in Wedge seems to find resolve. He swallows hard. “Notify the General that the objective has changed.”

 

Finn nods, typing into the arm held datapad. “I’ve got what we got for schematics on this ship. Do you know how you’re going to find Snoke on this thing?”

 

Rey thinks about the stamp, the memories she managed to steal from him. About how they’ve given her a foothold in the flow that she thinks she can follow.

 

Rey palms Finn’s lightsaber in her hand. 

 

“I’ve got an idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -the eating sun matter thing was snagged from the TFA concept artbook.
> 
> -i am aggressively Rule of Cooling all force powers in this chapter and i make no apologies


	5. it doesn't hurt me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was getting long, so i split it! thank ignitesthestars for a faster update ;) the second half of this chapter will be done pretty soon too i hope! (got some of my favorite scenes coming up with that one :D :D)
> 
> \--
> 
> also two, new super beautiful fanworks for the crossroads series!!!!
> 
> thanks to @degouges on tumblr for making [this gorgeous edit about rey's lightsaber!!!!!](https://degouges.tumblr.com/post/165377907548/gizkasparadise-the-death-of-kylo-ren-1)
> 
> and to @ceallaigheirinn [for this super awesome moodboard for And I'm Here!!!](https://ceallaigheirinn.tumblr.com/post/165380840548/so-i-made-a-mood-board-for-gizkasparadise-and-her)

“I hate this plan,” Finn says levelly, the helmet giving his voice a slight echo. “And you’re getting the walk wrong.”

 

To her right, Wedge makes a noncommittal grunt, but straightens his posture. Each of them have a hand under Rey’s arm, pretending to drag her as though she were unconscious. Her bare toes are cold against the metal of the  _ FInalizer’s  _ corridor.

 

She risks enough to look to Finn’s waist. Hidden in the white utility belt of the stolen stormtrooper armor is his lightsaber, loosely attached and ready for Rey to grab at any moment. It’s a large risk, but not one that’s unprecedented in a Resistance known for always having terrible odds.

 

“Rey. I  _ hate  _ this plan,” Finn emphasizes, knowing she can’t respond. 

 

It wasn’t much of one, all things considered. It’s…

 

It’s based on what Han would call a hunch. For some reason that makes her believe in it. 

 

Force knocking out a pair of stormtroopers had been easy, locking their bodies in the storage closet and giving the armor to Finn and Wedge. Wedge’s frame was too lanky for a completely perfect fit, noticeable with close scrutiny. It happened twice already, but with a small nudge of Force persuasion, Rey had them looking the other way or remembering a different corridor in need of patrolling. She placed herself in a low-grade meditation trance, one that would be enough to convince someone without Force sensitivity that she was unconscious.

 

They were bringing her back to her jailor. 

 

“So we’re, what? Knocking on doors until we find Hux?” Finn mutters under his breath, as they turn another corner.

 

_ Something like that,  _ she thinks, hopefully loud enough in the Force that Finn can understand.

 

He must, because he shakes his head in disbelief. The effect somewhat undermined by the large stormtrooper’s helmet.

 

“I hate being back in this thing,” he mutters, more to himself.

 

_ I’m sorry,  _ Rey thinks, but it’s Wedge who speaks.

 

“It’s a means to an end.” There’s a note of wry humor in his tone. “When we get home we can have a bonfire party with them. That’s how we used to do it, you know.”

 

Finn snorts half-heartedly, but the statement makes Rey’s stomach twist. She remembers building a pyre for stormtroopers, once. 

 

Down the hall, there’s the unmistakable sound of boots hitting the floor. Several pairs of them.

 

“They’re in Security,” Finn states, likely recognizing an insignia. “Here we go, I guess.”

 

“I’ll let you do the talking,” Wedge suggests, deadpan. 

 

She slows her breathing, going deeper into the trance. 

 

“Halt!”

 

They come to a stop. Rey keeps her breathing slow, muting out the conversation Finn and the unit leader are having above her. She expands her mind, untethering her will and letting it blanket the woman questioning Finn’s credentials.

 

_ Hux,  _ she thinks.  _ You want to take us directly to Hux. _

 

There’s a pause. “You...need to report to Hux,” the security leader says. “Stop wasting time here.”

 

She knows Finn is looking at her, even if she can’t look up and the helmet would obscure it anyways. “Yes, ma’am.”

 

_ Show us,  _ Rey presses.

 

“Follow us then,” the woman says, and Rey hears her turn around. “But keep an eye on her--the Jedi are unpredictable.”

 

“You’re telling me,” Finn agrees, grip tightening just for a moment on Rey’s arm.

 

\--

 

Luke’s breath is growing shallower, and Kylo stares at him for a long time. His uncle and Dolari are still slumped in their kneeling position, but he sees that Luke is weak and that him being able to fight is out of the question.

 

“What do you want to do,” he grumbles, finally. He doesn’t know what it is that has stopped him from running, from trying to secure the nearest shuttle himself and leave the old man behind.

 

“We’ll have to bring Dolari into custody.”

 

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

 

“I know.”

 

A long pause. Luke gradually manages to push himself from Dolari, using his hand to cradle the back of her head until it touches the ground. That simple movement seems to take everything that’s left out of him, and he collapses on his side on the temple’s floor.

 

“Go, if that’s what you need to do,” he manages.

 

Kylo grits his teeth, eyes drifting from Dolari, to his uncle. The scene before him so pathetic he feels robbed of any vindication he would have at abandoning them.

 

“That’s still not what I was asking,” he bites out, voice impatient.

 

Luke looks up at him with sad eyes, breathing shallow. “I never wanted to make any of your choices, Ben.” He exhales in what might be a self-deprecating laugh. “In hindsight, maybe not the best parenting decision.”

 

The word  _ parent  _ throws him, and Kylo feels his body tense. But there is truth to it--Luke raised him more than either Leia or Han, the former busy running the galaxy and the latter running across it. He stares at Luke, worn out and dying on the ground. Then Dolari, who might feed on his Force energy again should she wake up.

 

In his mind, he sees Rey the last time he saw her--curled up and beaten on the floor of a cell, her fingers brushing his. The cave in Dagobah, where she told him he couldn’t only believe in her.

 

...Her final message to him to save the man dying in front of him, typed hastily on the datapad as if she already knew everything with them was a matter of incorrect timing.

 

Kylo breathes angrily through his nose, and storms out of the room.

 

“Where are you going?” Luke calls after him with a weary resignation he hates hearing. Like he  _ expected better from him.  _

 

“To call you a shuttle!” He snaps, fist slamming against a wall panel to activate a console.

 

\--

 

“We’re coming up on the general’s quarters,” Finn says under his breath, Rey’s arms and legs beginning to ache with the charade. They’ve crossed nearly half of the gigantic ship. 

 

In response, she gives the barest flex of her hand, indicating that she’s ready. Gradually, she starts to remove herself from the trance.

 

“The guards are here to deliver the escaped prisoner,” the female security officer addresses.

 

“What?” One of the guards barks incredulously. “Why didn’t you just bring it back to the holding cells? Turn around.”

 

Rey sighs.  _ You want to deliver me personally to Hux. There’ll be a reward. _

 

There’s a shuffle, and suddenly she hears the unmistakable sound of a blaster charging.

 

“She’s conscious!”

 

Rey’s arms are dropped by Finn and Wedge, and she reacts quickly, snagging the lightsaber on Finn’s belt and igniting it just as he slams his blaster on the top of the guard’s head. Quickly, Rey presses her index and middle finger to her nose, concentrates, and sends out a mind blast as strong as she can. 

 

Instantly, the four guards that surround them collapse in heaps on the floor. 

 

Wedge stares at her. 

 

Finn stares at the mess. And absently kicks the arm of one of the unconscious guards. “Okay, let’s just knock down the door.”

 

Wedge starts shrugging out of his ill-fitting armor, still looking at Rey as though he is a little shaken. “Best plan I’ve heard all day.”

 

Rey turns to Finn. He nods, and the two of them raise their hands, grabbing at the door with the Force and tearing it open. The moment they do, alarms start blasting once again, but the trio charge ahead into what appears to be an antechamber or sitting room.

 

Finn takes the lead, shoving down all the charging personnel to the ground with waves of his arms. His movements are clumsy, but powerful, and Rey takes a second to absorb how much he’s learned in the six months she’s been in captivity.

 

Then she ignites his lightsaber. The golden color is a direct opposition to the endless, polished chromes and blacks of the ship. She makes some basic deflections, still feeling the effects of her  _ training  _ and imprisonment. But she’s not helpless, and she’s not alone, and between Finn’s Force movements and Wedge’s shooting they clear the antechamber quickly. 

 

They rush to the second set of doors, this one thicker than the one at the entrance. At Rey’s annoyed look, Finn offers a small smile.

 

“Yeah, he’s always been paranoid.”  He makes a shooing motion at her and Wedge. 

 

Confused, Rey obeys, taking a half-step. “What are you doing?” 

 

“Let him handle it,” Wedge states, backing away further.

 

“What-?”

 

“Rey I’m trying to work here,” Finn chides. 

 

He closes his eyes, and Rey watches him press the flat of his palm against the door. There’s a beat, then two, before the metal seems to pulse with the Force. And Rey recognizes the energy--how it feels so similar to the power she used to break open her containment cell.

 

“What is this?” She asks Wedge quietly.

 

“Shatterpoint,” Wedge states. “Luke showed him how, but from what I understand it didn’t take a lot of instruction.”

 

The thought of Luke, alive and well and training Finn, brings a large smile to Rey’s face. 

 

And then Finn pushes his palm further against the door, and the metal cracks out in a spider’s web before shattering completely, components of scrap metal and dust sinking to the floor.

 

There’s the sound of confused yelling on the other side--more guards, Rey assumes. But a distinct voice raises above them all:

 

“Kill any who enter!”

 

Hux.

 

Rey springs into action, lightsaber at the ready. Even with her exhausted body, she is quick to disarm two stormtroopers with the Force, and slash through another’s chest plate. There’s the quick punch of blasters at her sides as Finn and Wedge fire, and soon it’s just them, and a pale Admiral standing before a console.

 

Hux eyes the fallen soldiers with a lightly curled lip. Then the intruding party, eyes landing and staying on Finn as though he recognizes him but can’t place where. He lets out a slow breath.

 

“I imagine you’re all quite pleased with yourselves.”

 

“Where’s Snoke?” Finn brings up his blaster, aiming it at Hux’s chest.

 

Hux stares at it, sniffs, and takes a moment to brush something off of one of his epaulets. “I’ve had training to resist Jedi persuasion.” His cold eyes meet Rey’s. “Do your worst, if you can manage it.”

 

Rey disengages Finn’s lightsaber.

 

She can manage it.

 

\--

 

A minute later, Rey is removing her fingers from Hux’s temples, the Admiral is sliding to the floor, and the concerned look Wedge gave her has transitioned to wary.

 

“You okay?” Finn asks, his question soft but careful as he brings a hand to rest on her shoulder.

 

Rey is perfectly fine in this moment. Which is something that will scare her, later. “Snoke’s in his chambers on the opposite side of the  _ Finalizer,  _ which is preparing to exit atmo.” Her eyes slide to Finn’s, hold his gaze. “We won’t have enough time to cross the ship without air transport. Even with, it’s possible we might not leave before the jump to hyperspace.”

 

His face is grim. “Meaning we’re in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the First Order.”

 

“After a possibly assassination attempt.”

 

“Could be better.”

 

“Could be better,” Rey echoes.

 

Wedge says nothing, moving past them to the console. He keys in a few things, and after a moment a screen flickers to life in front of them. Rey looks up from where she stands over Hux’s prone body, and recognizes Captain Connix. 

 

“ _ Echo of Hope, _ ” she greets flatly, although Rey sees her eyes go to where Hux has fallen. A smirk forms on her lips.

 

“I’d like a chat with the General,” Wedge states.

 

“One moment.”

 

The screen flickers, and Rey’s eyes well up with tears when she sees Leia appear. The older woman spares her a warm smile before her attention is fully on Wedge.

 

“Looks like you had fun.”

 

“Got a present for your lifeday, General.”

 

“I’d love to hear what it is.”

 

“The Admiral of the First Order.”

 

Leia’s smile grows. “Just what I wanted.” Someone says something offscreen, and she nods to them. When she turns her attention back, her expression goes concerned as she realizes who is missing from the picture.

 

“Where’s Ben? And Luke?”

 

Wedge is stiff. And Rey’s worries grow at the reminder of the battle he’s fighting. On his own, or at least,  _ without her. _

 

“We had to split up.” The statement sounds like it’s made of small cuts, and Wedge leans forward against the console.

 

“Where’s my son, Wedge?”

 

He looks down. Rey knows that Luke means as much to him as Kylo does to her, and his response to these questions scares her. 

 

“Wedge?” She asks behind him, but he ignores her.

 

Instead he takes a moment, and keeps his tone as level as possible. “Requesting transport for prisoner Hux, as well as a drop.”

 

Leia’s brows draw down. “What drop.”

 

Wedge looks over his shoulder at her. Rey shakily places her growing fears aside to focus on the now, on what must be done.

 

“We’re going after Snoke,” she says, hoping her words sound confident. “He’s on the other side of the  _ FInalizer. _ ”

 

The General weighs this. And Rey is unendingly impressed with her ability to see the big picture when she gives a grim nod. “If you can get him, he’s yours. I’ll dispatch a shuttle to the nearest dock.” Her eyes flicker to the floor.  “Hux’s safety is low priority.”

 

“Thank you,” Rey whispers, anxiety eating away at the edge of her heart as her mind becomes preoccupied with other thoughts. Of Luke and Kylo and divergent paths.

 

“May the Force be with all of you.” Leia sounds tired. Then the transmission cuts. 

 

Wedge clears his throat, voice hard. “Where’s the extraction point?”

 

Finn looks at Rey, then Wedge, before he seems to reconcile something. He’s holding something back, and Rey needs to trust that he’s making the right call. That  _ she’s  _ making the right call in going after Snoke instead of going back to defend Kylo.

 

...She does. But it kills her.

 

“About 300 meters,” Finn says, keying in something on his datapad. “ETA about ten minutes, and a wall of stormtroopers between us and there.” Finn looks at Wedge. “And I’m not it for the piggyback ride.”

 

Wedge makes a noise of low disgust, before he bends down and hoists Hux’s body onto his back, gripping the unconscious man under the legs like a child.

 

Finn stares at Rey. “I’ll take the lead. You take point.”

 

Rey shakes her head. “I can fight-”

 

“You’re exhausted,” Finn counters. “And we’ll need a cover for our exit to the shuttle. The lightsaber’s the best weapon for that.” 

 

She hesitates, but finally nods in acceptance. 

 

“Okay.” Finn adjusts his grip on his blaster again and facing the nearest door. “Let’s move.”

 

The door slides open, and more than two dozen stormtroopers are ready to greet them.


	6. fire, fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warnings** this chapter for child abandonment  & a whole lot of ass kicking. i hope you all enjoy, i think this was my favorite chapter in the series to write <3

He sits sullenly on the temple floor. Along with Dolari’s, and now Luke’s, unconscious bodies, there are a few corpses of stormtroopers who thought it wise to apprehend him. They eventually arrived in smaller and smaller numbers, and he knew that to mean the  _ FInalizer  _ above them was preparing for its final stages of evacuation.

 

Soon it would make a jump to hyperspace, deeper into the Unknown Regions where they could hide for months, years.

 

With Rey.

 

His legs are crossed, knees drawn to his chin as he glares at the beach before him. He’s stuck babysitting an old man and a Knight of Ren as he waits for the nearest shuttle. The Resistance, remarkably, appears to be having the upper hand. 

 

A burst of static in his ear, and Kylo readjusts the piece in it.

 

“ _ Look up, kid, _ ” Kes states over the comm link.

 

He does.

And hates what he sees.

 

_ The Happabore  _ was miraculously identified as an asset during the Resistance’s six-month occupation of Takodana, especially after Aalto’s hidden detonators took out several spare haulers on Tatooine. Support pilots had picked up the brick on Jakku, refurbished it with thicker blast plating and higher shield generators.

 

But it still lands with the same  _ thunk _ ! on the ground, rocking violently from side to side in a way that does not inspire confidence. From the cockpit’s viewport, he sees Kes, flipping some toggles so the heap of metal idles but doesn’t depower. They’re not staying long.

 

Kylo doesn’t waste time, he starts forward-

 

_ “Grab the others. I’m tripling as the med vac and prisoner transport.” _

 

He glares in irritation, but with an agitated flick of his fingers, Luke and Dolari’s bodies hover behind him--their weight a mild strain. He feels the Force within him, agitated and whirling. It needs an outlet. It needs something to  _ fight. _

 

_ The Happabore’s  _ door slides up, and he unceremoniously levitates Luke and Dolari into the too-short bunk beds that somehow perfectly fit them both. He sees the patching of bad wires on the far wall that had almost killed them on the way to Manaan, and scowls.

 

“Go,” he commands.

 

“Already am,” Kes says without looking at him. “And I’m a master sergeant by the way.”

 

“So?”

 

“So I outrank you and sit down.” 

 

Kylo stands on principle as Kes flips the transport back to life. “Black Leader, we’re golden. Ready?”

 

Poe’s voice crackles in the transport. “ _ We have you covered, old man.” _

 

Kes shakes his head, and pulls back on the controls. The transport ascends. “Make sure Luke and the prisoner are secured!” He calls. “It’s about to get rough.”

 

Kylo obeys, a part of him still listening to the old man in the tavern. There’s four bunks, and he uses the Force to create makeshift safety harnesses for both Luke and Dolari. The latter, he pushes further under, into a deeper sleep.

 

“And Ben?”

 

He is too preoccupied with the transport’s movement, with where they’re heading, to bristle at the address. “What?”

 

“Make room on another bunk. We’re grabbing another high priority prisoner.”

 

He turns to the narrow hall between the bunks and the cockpit. “Who?”

 

Kes chuckles, a dry sound that seems at odds with the chaos surrounding them. Already, the transport is making maneuvers to avoid shots. Kylo looks out the viewport to see that they’re flanked by a pair of X-wings. The one closest to his has a familiar-looking astromech on the top of it-

 

“Hux.”

 

Kylo’s snort escapes him before he can stop it.

 

_ The Happabore  _ pitches violently to the side, and he hits his head on one of the bed frames.

 

\--

 

She’s exhausted, sweat soaking her tank, shorts, wrappings, and hair as she covers their retreat. Already, her arms feel like lead, muscles screaming as she moves the lightsaber in quick, vicious whirls that are more appropriate for a staff. Rey’s unpracticed, out of shape from her months in captivity, but she lets the Force supplement her when she can.

 

Wedge is safest, with the Admiral on his back, but the weight makes him unable to fight. It’s just her and Finn, the smallest protection detail against a literal squadron of stormtroopers. For every one she fells, three more replace it from the halls and side corridors of the massive star destroyer.

 

Three hundred metres has never felt so long. But eventually they gain ground. Finn alternates between shooting and summoning Force waves in front of them as they move. Eventually, they clear the path to a blank wall. It’s a smaller docking port, for maintenance more than likely, but the airlock is slammed closed and the panel is across the hall from them--a distance that could mean life or death in the situation they’ve found themselves in.

 

“Cover me!” Finn yells.

 

She’ll do her best. Wedge, well-trained in combat, automatically takes the spot hardest to shoot at as Rey stands in front of Finn, arm extended and lightsaber held horizontally in front of her chest.

 

She can already feel her physical strength draining, but she draws on something forgotten within her. A connection to the Force she never knew she had, buried deep and smothered quiet. It whispers to her like a second awakening, the continuous instruction and promise from the ghosts of Dantooine:

 

_ This is where we brought you. _

 

The stormtroopers halt their firing in favor of falling into formation around them. Soon, they are surrounded on all sides save Finn’s wall, where he is pressing his hand. It feels like a last stand.

 

Rey breathes. Calls out to the Force.

 

_ One by one by one. _

 

She settles into a stance she absently recognizes as Niman, though she’s never trained extensively in the form. With her other hand, she raises her arm and casts a barrier she knows how to create without instruction. The Force expands around her in a net of light blue, eventually forming a dome over the three of them. She doesn’t know how long she can hold it.

 

“ETA?” She asks, knowing that’s an unhelpful question in a situation like this.

 

Finn doesn’t answer as he searches the walls for a fault line in the Force. 

 

Instead, Wedge readjusts his grip on Hux. “Four minutes.”

 

Four minutes. And all that’s between her friends and about thirty stormtroopers is Rey.

 

She exhales. “Alright.”

 

One of the stormtroopers barks out the command to fire. The rest follow. 

 

Rey grits her teeth, raises her forearm just above her forehead, and braces herself and her barrier as dozens of blaster shots pepper across it.

 

\--

 

Kylo grips the top of the door between the bunker and the transport as  _ The Happabore  _ rocks with violent movements once again. A shot connects with the rear of the ship, and he’s thrown bodily into the wall.

 

“ _ Black 3 evacuate!”  _ He hears Poe yell, and knows that they’ve just lost one of their escorts.

 

“Black Leader, we’re coming up on the pick-up,” Kes states professionally, but Kylo can hear the anxiousness for his son in the relay.

 

“ _ Copy, switching to full perimeter escort. _ ”

 

Kylo pushes himself up from the floor, only for the transport to rattle again. “Keep this still!” He yells.

 

“You do better!” Kes yells back. 

 

He finally manages a stand, walking on unsteady legs to the front of the cockpit. He watches out of the viewport, looking for the docking port. Looking for Rey.

 

“Black Leader, see anything?”

 

A pause and then: “ _ Negative _ .”

 

Kylo frowns. The Force within him stirs once more, a gentle hand on his back guiding him forward. He points to a section of  _ The Finalizer’s  _ exterior. “There.”

 

“What-?”

 

The wall Kylo pointed at suddenly becomes a cloud of shrapnel, propelling out of the sky. His heart thuds violently, blood rushing in his ears. That was shatterpoint.

 

That was Rey.

 

Just before he’s about to grab the controls from Kes himself, the old man pitches  _ The Happabore  _ forward. 

 

The first thing they see when they approach is the flare of blaster fire.

 

\--

 

“Evac is here! Wedge,  _ move _ !” Finn shouts after he destroys the wall.

 

Rey keeps her back to it, panting as she alternates between deflecting shots with her barrier and using her mind to Force shove any melee advancers to the ground. She can’t hold out much longer, but it sounds like she doesn’t have to.

 

There’s the sound of a heavy engine. One she knows well. Rey closes her eyes for just a moment and smiles. 

 

_ Kylo _ ? She tries.

 

He doesn’t answer in words, but she feels his emotions like a burst in the Force. Relief, anger.

Love.

 

Force, she missed him. 

 

The stormtroopers, seeing the transport, advance more aggressively--aware that the strategy to tire them out is void. 

 

Rey swallows. She hears the sound of Wedge’s boots on the floor. As rear guard, it’s her job to hold the line until they all are away.

 

Her arm trembles. 

 

She can do it.

 

\--

 

She’s alive, and he can breathe again. Throughout the cloud of hazy smoke and red fire, he catches sight of Finn’s gold lightsaber, of a light-blue dome emerging from the thick of the fight.

 

They aren’t even stopped when there’s a body leaping at the transport.

 

“GRAB HIM!” Kes shouts.

 

Kylo reacts on instinct more than anything, hand flying up to catch the person--person _ s _ \--with the Force. As he draws the bodies in,  _ The Happabore  _ is hit once more. Kylo falls across the body of the ship. The back of his head connects with a metal support beam, a sick  _ crack. _

 

A pair of bodies skid in after him,  _ The Happabore  _ at a slanted angle as it loses one of its engines.

 

“Shit!” Kes screams, though his voice sounds muffled to Kylo, distorted in a way that makes him know he has a concussion. “Poe, we’re going down!”

 

“ _ Is everyone secure _ ?”

 

Kylo fights through the fog of his mind, pushing himself up on his elbows to see who it is he’s brought into the transport. Wedge and Hux, the last ones he cares about, are collapsed on the ground. 

 

“Where’s Rey?!” He shouts. 

 

“No,” Kes says with an impossibly sad voice over the channel. “We’re missing two-!”

 

Another hit lands,  _ The Happabore  _ begins to fill with smoke.

 

“I have to land, can you pick them up?” Kes shouts into channel.

 

“ _ In the fighter?!” _

 

“Your mom’s done crazier shit!”

 

“You can’t leave Rey!” Kylo screams, pushing himself up into a stand. His body sways with vertigo, but he can focus on that one light in the dark. The solitary beam of gold in the smoke. 

 

The sound of a disbelieving, reckless laugh.  _ “Yeah, I got them!” _

 

_ The Happabore  _ starts to turn, pivot.  **_Leave._ **

 

“Wait!” He commands. Kylo raises his hand, and he slows the transport with the Force.

 

“Ben what the fuck are you doing?!” Kes yells from the cockpit as he grabs controls with his mind.

 

“ _ We’re not leaving her! _ ”

 

“I have to land or this ship is going to explode. And no one’s leaving anyone, Poe-”

 

Kylo doesn’t bother to listen to the rest of the sentence. He lifts his arm, staggering from side to side. Gradually, the ship starts to pull back to the exit port.

 

“Damn it, Ben!”

 

Kylo curls his fingers into his palms-

 

-and suddenly he sees Wedge standing in front of him. The old man looks grim as he lifts up his blaster.

 

And slams the butt of it into Kylo’s head.

 

\--

 

“Wedge!” Finn screams into the comm link. “WHY’S OUR RIDE LEAVING?!”

 

“The Happabore _ ’s been hit and has to land,”  _ comes a voice Rey hasn’t heard in a long, long while. “ _ I’m your ride.” _

 

Rey can’t see him, but she imagines Finn shaking his head or looking up. “On your X-wing?!”

 

“ _ That’s right, buddy.” _

 

“And that means you’re the one taking us to Snoke.”

 

_ “Remind you of old times?” _

 

Finn snorts in disbelief. But Rey is focused on something else. A sudden silence.

 

“What happened to Kylo?”

 

_ “Dad says he’s unconscious, but fine. Got knocked around a bit with the fire.” _

 

She breathes in relief. The barrier around them starts to crack. “Finn, I can’t hold it.”

 

“Okay, we’re moving!” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “Poe, you ready for us?”

 

“ _ Never done this before in my life. But yes.” _

 

“Shit. Okay. Okayokayokay. Here it goes. Shit.” He licks his lips, looks up and- “Rey,  _ GO _ !”

 

She drops the barrier, turns as fast as she can. She catches sight of the end of Finn’s arm as he leaps out of  _ The Finalizer,  _ and she runs after him without hesitation. The wind whips around her body from the atmosphere and engines, and heat from barely missing blaster fire singes her skin, but she pumps what adrenaline she has left into her arms and legs. Into making it off this docking port.

 

Rey leaps out into the air, without seeing where she’ll land.

 

She falls through the sky for a moment, before she looks down and sees Poe’s X-Wing rising up to meet her. Finn’s already landed on one of the S-foils. She uses the Force to guide her descent, aiming for a place big enough for her body. 

 

She lands, of all things, on BB-8.

 

The droid chirps in happy excitement as Rey wraps her arms around its head. “Yes, I missed you too!” She screams, knowing it’s near impossible to hear over the fighter’s engines. 

 

“ _ I think this is a new one for the books,”  _ Poe rattles from inside the cockpit, looking up and sending her a wink before he begins to maneuver the X-wing, turning it around.

 

“REY!” Finn screams across from her, arms gripping the edge of the wing. “YOU’RE LUCKY I LOVE YOU!”

 

She laughs, unable to do anything else at the impossible situation they’ve found themselves in.   
  
“I KNOW!”

 

Poe begins to fly underneath  _ The Finalizer,  _ following the coordinates he must have received from Finn or Leia earlier. Rey focuses her Force energy into keeping her anchored, noticing that Finn is doing the same.

 

“ _ One problem!”  _ Poe states, as he dodges fire and Rey tries desperately not to lose her stomach. “ _ No docking bay near this guy’s room.” _

 

Rey tries her best to think. Then feels the edge of Finn’s lightsaber dig into her hip, and smiles. 

 

“I’LL MAKE ONE!”

 

“ _ What _ ?!” 

 

“JUST FLY ME AS CLOSE UNDERNEATH AS YOU CAN!”

 

“REY-!” 

 

“I’VE GOT THIS!”

 

She sees Poe shake his head in the cockpit, but the X-wing rises up all the same. Rey stumbles into a haunch, her entire body swaying from the wind and movement of the fighter, but the Force allows her to stand her ground. Around them, she hears the deafening noise of proton torpedoes being fired, as TIEs and Resistance fighters engage in a firefight around them. One shoots at them, and barely misses.

 

Slowly, Rey presses up with one hand, until her entire body is standing over BB-8.

 

And then she grips Finn’s lightsaber tightly in both hands, and ignites it.

 

The gold beam is steady, and she lets out a cry before she thrusts it upwards. The lightsaber carves into the underbelly of the ship, the moving X-wing letting it drag through a layer of exterior plating and wiring. Rey feels the sparks of electricity and ion against her skin, but she bares her teeth and fights through the pain as she carves a divot.

 

Poe lets out a disbelieving laugh underneath her. “ _ Let me guess--circle _ ?”

 

Rey, unable to do anything else but maintain her grip and hold her body to the X-wing, nods.

 

Poe laughs again, something that sounds suspiciously like “WOO HOO,” as he begins to spin, to fly the X-wing in a continuous circle.

 

Rey keeps pressing up with Finn’s lightsaber, carving deeper and deeper on each rotation until, finally, the metal starts to give way.

 

“POE GET READY TO FLY!” She shouts. Then, to Finn. “CAN YOU GRAB IT?”

 

Finn gives her a thumb’s up as he starts to lift his body as well. He extends an arm, grabs at the metal with his mind, and starts peeling it back. Rey looks up and sees the interior of a hall. She bends low, tries to figure out the best timing, and then Force jumps into the opening. 

 

She lands with a hard crash against the floor, coughing as the air flies out of her lungs. The lightsaber disengages by her side and rolls out of her hands.

 

After a moment, Finn jumps up after her, landing more gracefully in a roll. He situates himself, then looks at her. She looks back. And they both share a huge smile that’s at odds with the task before them.

 

_ “That’s going to get us all a medal,”  _ comes Poe’s amused voice. “ _ I’ll find a place to lay low, signal me when you’ve got the bastard.” _

 

“You got it,” Finn says quietly, before he lets his head slump to the floor in happy disbelief. 

 

Rey lets herself catch a breath.

 

They’ve made it to Snoke’s personal wing.

 

\--

 

_ He’s unconscious, though present enough in the Force to realize it. But this is a different type of unconscious, he believes, as he walks through an empty, dark room. The ground under his feet gives less traction than he expects. The further he walks, the more the space is illuminated--a simple, stone room, with sand slowly falling from ceiling to floor--filling like an hourglass.  _

 

_ There is a dark figure standing in the center of it, face partially obscured by the shadow cast by a lone candle held in the center of his hand. Kylo can make out the profile of a man around his age, a thin scar going from forehead to the top of his cheek and sandy curls escaping from underneath his hooded cloak. _

 

_ Kylo’s feet stop, because the light from the candle flickers. Instead of the man there’s a face made of wires and gears and bits of bone, hinting at the formation of a mask that is never quite complete. _

 

_ The sand rises to cover his boots. Kylo knows who this is. _

 

_ “...why now?” Is all he manages, his voice strained and verging on a sob. Because it has been years, for him. Decades, of calling for this man who never would answer. _

 

_ “Because this is where I’ve brought you,” he says--voice not that of a man’s or a shadow’s, but somewhere in between. “And,” he continues, quieter. Regretful. “This is where I can help you.” _

 

_ The sand rises to his knees. Kylo tries to walk toward the apparition, but he never seems to get closer no matter how many steps he takes. “What do you mean?” _

 

_ The apparition lifts the hand holding the candle, the wax of it melting over his palm and landing on the sand. The light dances across the profile. Man. Monster. Both. _

 

_ “I brought balance by being the darkness,” he says. Or maybe warns. “And the dark wins, in the end. But it only takes one light to hold it back.”   _

 

_ Kylo stares at him. The sand rises to his chest. He thinks about the only light that matters to him and swallows hard. “You mean Rey?” _

 

_ The apparition shakes his head. The sand raises to his chin. “No, Ben.” _

 

_ The candle goes out. _

 

_ “You.” _

 

\--

 

Kylo wakes with a violent movement, his Force energy spiking and nullifying the ion of the medical droid attending him. Groggy, he presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, feeling a bandage underneath his wrist.

 

Irritatedly, the memories come back to him--the concussion, the end of Wedge’s blaster. If Rey is hurt because of it, he’ll die for it.

 

Kylo licks his lips, focuses a cooling wash of healing energy into his forehead, and feels the disorientation abate.

 

The vision. He had-

 

Kylo inhales, and roughly shoves himself out of the cot. He feels sand under his boots, so he knows he’s still planetside, and it doesn’t take long for him to find the exit to the makeshift medic tent. He ignores any other patients that might be present in favor of storming back to the beach. As soon as he lifts the partition he hears screams and blaster fire.

 

He looks up, seeing X-wings and TIE fighters engaged in dog fights, sees one X-wing in particular flying far too close underneath the belly of  _ The FInalizer.  _

 

Kylo glares. 

 

And starts running across the invasion-torn beach, hating the feeling of sand in his boots and hair.

 

\--

 

The audience chamber doors part for them, as if they’re expected. Rey sends an uncertain look to Finn, who returns it--both of their earlier elation replaced by a sense of finality. Both fully aware that they might not be leaving this room. 

 

...Rey remembers this room. Being drugged or beaten so she couldn’t orientate to it. Of being held down to the metal, grated floor as Snoke ran a hand through her hair as stormtroopers beat her. 

 

She is beaten, bloodied, and bruised. She has used most of her energy, her connection to the Force a strained and weak thing. Her feet are bare, her borrowed jacket shredded and reeking of smoke and carbon scoring. Her arms are puckered with small burns from sparks.

 

But she’s ready to end this.

 

“You don’t have to...” she starts to tell FInn, her voice breaking at the end. Because she knows what she’s asking of him if she asks him to walk into that room with her.

 

He smiles but doesn’t look at her, hand on his overheated blaster. “I told you next time I was going with, didn’t I?”

 

Her eyes sting. “Thank you.”

 

He nods. Rolls his shoulders. “Guess it’s too late to go back to Jakku?”

 

She laughs, a short and barking sound. “...no one wants to go to Jakku.”

 

Finn’s smile grows, and he hoists his blaster. “Don’t screw up my lightsaber,” he warns. “Took like. Two months to get the color right.”

 

She ignites it. The pleasant warmth of it a contrast to the painful burns on her arms. “I won’t.”

 

The pair of orphans who found each other in a desert look at one another, then they step passed the door as one.

 

\--

 

Snoke is waiting for them.

 

He sits in his throne, which doesn’t look nearly as high now that Rey is able to stand in front of it. He looks bored, of all things, but Rey has long learned that his lack of expression is more about age than true intent. She suspects he forgot how to look human a long time ago.

 

His golden robe sparks in the darkness of the chamber as he leans forward.

 

“What are you?” He asks, staring at Rey.

 

She doesn’t know how to answer that question, but she brings Finn’s lightsaber up to her chest. “We’ll give you a chance to come quietly.”

 

Snoke ignores the comment, turning to acknowledge Finn after a long stretch of time. “FN-2187,” he greets, and Finn visibly recoils at the label. “I was quite interested in your progress, when you were still with us.”

 

Finn swallows. “Yeah, well.” He raises his blaster. “Here it is.”

 

“A pity.” Snoke’s dispassionate gaze moves back to Rey. “There is no longer room for you in the plan.” He steeples his fingers in front of him. “You will not leave this ship alive.”

 

“As long as you go with me,” she says much more bravely than she feels.

 

There is the slightest of flares to Snoke’s nostrils, a break in his eerily still face. “You overestimate what you mean to the universe, Rey  _ of Jakku. _ ” His eyes narrow. “At most, the best you were to me was a curiosity. Then an inconvenience.” 

 

The door slams shut behind them. Rey tries to fight the visceral memory of the first time she was brought here and held against her will.

 

“And inconveniences...will be dealt with.” 

 

Finn aims his blaster, prepares to fire. Rey tenses her muscles, about to leap-

 

Snoke closes his eyes.

 

And the audience chamber falls away from her in a slow fog.

 

\--

 

_ She’s young, so young she has no idea what her age is. She sits on a man’s shoulders, feeling his grip lax around her legs as she grabs fists of his dark hair. _

 

_ “Kira,” he chides. “Easy on  _ buir’s  _ hair.” _

 

_ Her small legs kick out as they travel. She rests her cheek against the top of his head instead, and falls asleep. _

 

_ Safe.  _

_ Protected. _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ “My little sun ray,” a woman says as she sets the table. There are flowers at the center. They eat the same bread they always eat.  _

 

_ At the end of the meal, she bends down and lightly tweaks the end of Rey--Kira’s--nose, and she sees that they have the same color eyes. _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ The bread gets thinner at the table.  _ Buir  _ doesn’t let her ride on his shoulders anymore. The planet they’ve been living on, the planet that’s home, is one they have to leave.  _

 

_ “Not enough salvage on Dxun anymore,” grumbles her  _ buir,  _ before he looks at her. “Not if we have three mouths to feed.” _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ They go to the desert, and they live in a market for awhile. Her mother makes them what she can, but every night Kira cries. She can’t help it, can’t help the hole in her stomach or the pain that causes her. _

 

_ “Shut her up,” her  _ buir  _ growls as he comes into the makeshift hovel her mother’s built from broken doors. He is tired, burned and haggard and thin from so much time spent in the sun with so little in return for it.  _

 

_ “She’s hungry,” her mother spits in return. _

 

_ Her  _ buir  _ glares down at her, at her small, malnourished body with a rounded stomach. _

 

_ “We’re  _ all  _ hungry.” _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ Her  _ buir  _ goes out for salvage. He does not come back. Her mother waits three days, before she gets too hungry. Before Kira gets too loud. Before she meets a man named Unkar Plutt and makes an exchange--a worker for a ship, even if the worker is a child. _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ The night before Kira isn’t Kira anymore, her mother sits with her under a threadbare blanket, trying to rock her to sleep. They are outside of the hovel, looking up at the endless array of stars.  _

 

_ “Let’s count them, sun ray. One by one by one,” her mother suggests with tears in her eyes. _

 

_ Kira does. Until she falls asleep--a heavier one from the drug her mother has slipped into her water. One that the old woman at the market said would help her forget. _

 

_ \-- _

 

“Rey!” Something shouts from far away. “Rey, wake up!”

 

\--

 

_ She doesn’t know what’s happening. A strange alien is grabbing her arm and a woman she doesn’t fully recognize is kneeling before her. _

 

_ “I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise,” she says with a mouth that is so like her own. _

 

_ She is young. So young, she doesn’t know why she is crying. But she is. She’s crying and she’s screaming, as the hands leave her cheeks.  _

 

_ “Don’t! Come back!” _

 

_ The woman sniffles, but she still leaves and she still doesn’t look back, the engine lights of her ship becoming pinpricks in the sky. _

 

_ \-- _

 

On the ground in the audience chamber, Rey curls into herself--body growing cold.

 

\--

 

_ She is curled up on the bed, her cheek resting against his bare chest. She is older now, older than she has ever been. The room smells like home, like earth and Kylo. _

 

_ His fingers card through her hair. She smiles, letting herself be soothed back to sleep. _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ “I love you,” she tells him, for once with an unguarded restraint.  _

 

_ She is smiling when she says it, her feet idly kicking off the roof they’re sitting on. The whole of Theed is below them, the sun setting in the horizon and when his hand slides over hers, engulfs the whole of it, this moment feels right. Feels like a culmination of all she’s ever worked for or wanted.  _

_ They are on the roof of their home. She turns, looking at Kylo and gripping his hand tighter in her own. _

 

_ He is older, too. He is heading into middle age, his hair holding a few strands of grey that she secretly thinks makes him look more like his father. He brings their conjoined hands to his lips, and kisses the back of them. _

 

_ They wear matching rings. Simple ones, that no one would notice otherwise if they weren’t looking. Rey hangs hers on a chain where she used to hold his kyber crystal. _

 

_ \-- _

 

He grabs her arm, recoiling instantly at the ice-cold of it.

 

\--

 

_ She’s curled up in bed. But the place next to her is empty. Rey looks around, panicked, but sees Kylo standing by the window--looking out of it, looking away from  _ their  _ place in the universe. _

 

_ “I love you,” she tries, when he doesn’t look away. _

 

_ There’s silence.  _

 

_ “I love you,” she says, louder this time. _

 

_ Kylo tears himself from whatever he sees with obvious reluctance, before he slowly smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ Things of his start to disappear from their house. Small things, at first. A shirt. An extra repair kit.  _

 

_ Then bigger things. His boots by the bed. His ring.  _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ “Where are you going?” She asks, tears in her eyes.  _

 

_ “Where it’s enough,” he says, voice detached and neutral in a way that hurts her more than if he had damned her name. _

 

_ \-- _

 

_ Rey watches him leave through the door, sinks to her knees, and lets go of a scream she’s held in for far too long. _

 

_ \-- _

 

“C’mon, we need you to wake up-!”

 

\--

 

_ After he leaves, she goes back to the only place she knows. _

 

_ The walls of the AT-AT are still scraped, still full of tallies that mark her days alone. With reluctance, she takes a piece of scrap metal and starts to draw a new one. _

 

“You know this wouldn’t happen again, Rey. We won’t leave you.”

 

_ She looks up, confused. But her old home is empty. The flowers on the table long since withered and dead. _

 

“Rey.”

 

_ She bites down on her lip. She knows this voice.  _ Knew  _ this voice. “What do you want?” She asks, afraid. _

 

_ A hand grabs her wrist- _

 

“-I need you to get the hell up,” Finn says.

 

Rey opens her eyes. And what happens next happens fast.

 

Above her supine body, Finn fires a shot from his blaster. She hears it, echoing in the chamber as it soars and  _ thuds  _ in a dull noise. There’s a release of breath.

 

Rey lets out a gasp, breaking out of the horror Snoke’s Force technique has held her in. Before she even has presence of mind, she does what comes as instinct. 

 

She stands, she runs. 

 

Snoke sits in front of her, hunched over as his hand presses against a wound in his shoulder. He eyes her with only a thin disdain, though his hatred seems to radiate from his body.

 

“ _ You, _ ” he hisses.

 

“Are an inconvenience,” she finishes for him, still dazed and weak. 

 

Rey doesn’t break eye contact as she reaches forward.

And presses her palm to his forehead.

 

\--

 

She is about to  _ pull,  _ to take whatever she wants or needs from him, when the chamber starts to shake. 

 

\--

 

Kylo looks up from his place on the beach, watching as the engines of  _ The Finalizer  _ begin to flare, as the star destroyer begins to power up. 

 

It’s going to jump to hyperspace. Rey is going to be  _ gone. _

 

And here he stands, hundreds of feet below it and unable to reach.

 

What happens next happens very slowly, a series of memories that dance across his mind:

 

Laying back in the snow, breathing heavy as the ground splits between them and she becomes unreachable.

Her flying his shuttle off of Jagomir, the rain soaking him to the bone.

His men firing, her body flying out into empty space as all he could do is watch.

Janara hurling a lightning bolt at her chest, and the awful unbearable silence which followed.

Laying on the ground on Yavin, fingers reaching for one another but barely touching. Her making a confession (“I’m scared”) and him a promise (“I’ll come back for you!”).

 

Kylo’s fist clenches at his side.

 

_ It only takes one light to hold it back. _

 

His breaths come in shorter, harsher. His eyes widen with desperate panic as he sees  _ The Finalizer  _ getting closer and closer to leaving. 

 

He is  _ not  _ powerless. Not this time.

 

Kylo looks at where he knows Snoke’s chamber is, a wing that feels thousands of miles away. It isn’t. It doesn’t have to be. 

 

He widens his stance, and closes his eyes.

 

_ This is where we’ve brought you,  _ it tells him. It is neither Light nor Dark. It’s something in between. It’s something he  _ is,  _ a potential never reached.

 

He’s going to reach it now.

 

Boots digging into the sand, Kylo pictures the audience chamber in his mind. He can see it, as though he were there. Finn, taking aim and  _ shooting  _ Snoke of all things. Rey reaching out and touching his forehead-

 

Kylo grinds his teeth, and lifts his arm.

 

Then calls the storm within him. 

 

The Force protests at what he wants to do, but he surrenders himself to it, to the turmoil that’s always been at odds in his heart. Light. Dark.

 

And, finally, the Balance.

 

Kylo splays his fingers, opens his eyes, and looks at the spot on  _ The Finalizer  _ he knows belongs to Snoke.

 

And then he  _ breaks. _

 

Power unleashes around him like a newly broken dam, the Force and his body becoming one in the same as Kylo clenches his fingers in the air. At the motion, the distant part of the  _ FInalizer,  _ Snoke’s wing, begins to shake. It’s not enough. He needs it to be enough.

 

Kylo throws up his opposite arm, mimicking the motion of the other. He makes as though grabbing, and then there’s the unmistakable scream of metal echoing throughout the beach of Lehon.

 

For a moment, everything goes still. And were he more aware of his present, Kylo would see the halting ground fight around him, how Resistance and First Order forces alike stare at him with unmitigated awe and fear. How the flying units begin to stall and make wider distances away from the star destroyer.

 

But he isn’t. Instead, he keeps his eyes trained on the sky. He doesn’t let go of the grip he has on the metal, on the Force. He lets out a groan, tearing again, and this time everyone can see it:

 

Snoke’s wing is ripping apart from  _ The Finalizer. _

 

Kylo hunches over, eyes trained dead at the sky as he focuses, as he brings the power of his legacy to fruition in that one moment. He draws back one of his arms, elbow to his ear as though about to let loose an arrow, and the ship breaks apart further--a clear, blue “v” of sky between it and the main body of the ship.

 

Nothing’s been done like this. It shouldn’t be possible.

 

But it is.  Because he wills it to be so. Because there is a light he can’t afford to let die out.

 

Kylo brings back his other arm, and he feels something warm trail down from his nose. The coppery taste of blood hits his lips, but he doesn’t care. He is one with his power, and his power is the whole of the Force.

 

He screams from the strain of it, but he waves both his arms down.

 

And sends Snoke’s personal wing crashing down to the planet’s surface.

 

\--

 

They’re falling. Some invisible Force knocks Rey away from Snoke, sending her sprawling on the steps below him.

 

“What is it this time?!” She swears.

 

Snoke lets out a wheeze of a laugh, the sound bone-chilling.

 

“My apprentice,” he whispers, smiling with bloodied teeth. “Has finally grown into his own.”

 

Rey tries to stand, but is knocked back down. “Kylo?” She demands.

 

But Snoke gives her nothing. Instead his head falls back, the blowback of Rey breaking his Force Horror and Finn’s shot apparently enough to send him into shock.

 

“Rey, pretty sure this is the way toward the ground!” Finn says. 

 

She looks at him, tries to get her heart to  _ slow down  _ enough to think. “Then we’d better make a harness.”

 

“Got any ideas?”

 

She thinks about the barrier. Winces. “One.”

 

The room shakes again, and this time Rey feels the air rushing in as one of the walls suddenly isn’t there anymore. It’s as if someone grabbed hold of the metal, bunched it in his fist, and teared.

 

...Her eyes widen when she remembers where she’s seen that before. It was years ago, when she was trapped in an X-wing and her evacuation had malfunctioned. It was when Kylo had torn her from her ship and saved her life.

 

“Force,” she swears in disbelief, but she is brought back from her revelation by Finn slinging one of her arms over his shoulders.

 

“Force later, survival  _ now _ -” he demands, before they’re both tossed to the other side of the room.

 

Rey grabs his hand, and summons what is left of her near non-existent energy into a final barrier.

 

\--

 

Kylo drops to his knees as he fights to keep hold of the wing. He aims for the shallow depths of the shoreline, for a softer landing. He tastes more blood in his mouth, but he ignores it.

 

He holds onto the falling wing with everything he has, expanding with the Force to give it a barrier while he also slows its descent. In the back part of his mind, he feels a presence. An anchor that allows him to keep summoning more and more power.

 

Kylo’s nose is bleeding, his eyes are bloodshot, and his ears are ringing when the hunk of star destroyer hits the ocean just outside the beach.

 

His body is moving before his mind tells it to, wading through the clear, syrupy blue water that is about waist high. It’s not deep enough to drown in, but he thinks about the vision in Dagobah’s cave and he has never felt more fear in his life when a single word rips from his throat.

 

“REY!”

 

There’s a moment of silence, of too long stillness that makes him think  _ what if- _

 

But then he sees Finn, jumping out from wreckage and into the water. And after him, he sees another figure, jumping out of the caved out-wall.

 

Kylo runs forward through the water, and before Rey knows what is happening he has his arms around her, gripping her so tightly to him that her body rises from the muddy sand beneath their feet.

 

She instantly returns the embrace, and he feels her ragged breath against his neck as she buries her face into it, arms pressing out of his vicegrip just enough to wrap around his waist.

 

She is too thin, too hurt, too tired. But none of that matters. He feels her shoulders rising and falling under his hands with her breath and it is the only pattern he needs to know in the whole of the universe.

 

“I thought you’d left,” she manages

 

The statement is so absurd, so impossible, that he pulls back for a moment to look at her. She has new bruises, new cuts. But her hazel eyes are bright and she’s fighting back sniffles as her hands clench into fistfuls of fabric in his shirt.

 

“...I’m right here,” he manages, touching his forehead to hers.

 

After another moment, one that allows their breathing to level and their panic to end, his lips press against hers in a quiet movement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Happabore
> 
> -the lightsaber cutting through a star destroyer, anakin's ghost appearance, the name kira, and the room full of sand are all inspired by/taken from TFA concept art!
> 
> -"buir" is Mandalorian for Father
> 
> -[Dxun](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dxun), the "demon moon"
> 
> -Anakin's "one lone candle" bit is derived from this passage in the _Revenge of the Sith_ novelization by Matt Stover:  
>  "The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.  
> Love is more than a candle.  
> Love can ignite the stars."
> 
> -Snoke put Rey under [Force Horror/Force Insanity](http://swgames.wikia.com/wiki/Mind_trick), a Dark Side mind trick from the KOTOR games
> 
> -At the end, Kylo is using the gd [UNIFYING FORCE](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Unifying_Force) (adopted and adapted here for my own Rule of Cool purposes)


	7. and i'm here, home with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a short epilogue to follow, and it's a wrap <3
> 
> thank you ceallaigheirinn for bearded!kylo :'D <3
> 
> edit: [incredible art of the cuddle/snuggle scene](https://kayurka.tumblr.com/post/170268697879/twenty-four-hours-feels-like-years-in-the-life) by kayurka! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

Eight days. They spend eight days on Takodana.

 

 **\--  
** **Day One.**  
\--

 

Celebrations are in full order as soon as they set foot on the soil of Maz’s planet. Music. Alcohol. Dancing.

 

Rey watches, too exhausted to have any reaction but a disassociation with her surroundings--Poe hops off his X-wing to laugh and scoop her up in a hug, spinning her in a circle before (impressively) doing the same to Finn. An anxious Wedge jogs beside the hoverstretcher that takes Luke and Dolari to the medbays. Kes sags against the bar with Maz, the two of them clinking together beer bottles that are about the size of the woman’s entire head.

 

From where she stands across the room, Leia stares straight at them, standing side by side as they leave their transport, and gives a small smile before mouthing the word, “ _Go_.”

 

And Rey realizes that that’s all she wants to do. She wants to be away from the noise, the chaos. For just a moment, she wants to let herself rest.

 

Before she knows what’s happening, there’s an arm under the bend of her knees, and she has just a moment to let out a short breath of surprise before she’s lifted, pressed protectively against Kylo’s chest in a bridal carry.

 

“What are you doing?” She asks.

 

“You look like you’re about to pass out,” is all he offers as justification, even though they both know through their bond that she’s quite able to walk on her own.

 

Instead of a protest, Rey just surrenders to the hold. She wraps her arms around Kylo’s neck, and lets her eyelids feel heavy as he starts walking toward something further in the castle.

 

He tightens his grip on her shoulders, and Rey is lulled to sleep so fast she suspects he had a helping hand with it.

 

\--

 

Rey wakes up a few hours later, her heart thrumming and mouth dry as she tries to mentally place where she is. The room is pitch black and her eyes land on a series of tally marks on the wall and she feels blind panic fill her-- _is she back in the cell_ \--

 

But then there’s the sound of something breathing next to her. Heavy, deep breaths that come from a bone weary exhaustion. Her heart slows and she smiles. He's _snoring_ _,_ really. Rey shifts in the bed, realizing that she’s still in her ruined training gear though her hands and feet have been carefully rebandaged. Rey wipes sleep from her eyes, and turns onto her side, away from the wall.

 

Kylo is next to her, his dark hair a mess over his face and full lips parted from the heavy breaths. Unlike her, he’s stripped down--vest, tunic, and pants discarded in favor of only his underclothes. His arm is stretched out under her neck as a makeshift pillow.

 

For a while, she just watches him. Counts his breath. Then she moves forward, curling into him--a leg over his hips, her arms folded against her chest as she tucks her head underneath his chin.

 

She counts his exhales until she falls asleep again.

 

Safe. She’s safe.

 

And, despite it all, so is everyone else.

 

\--

 

He wakes up to the smell of solder and the sound of a plasma torch. Absently, he runs his arm down the length of the bed, frowning when there’s no one there.

 

Kylo’s head is still pounding when he rolls onto his side, propping his head up with his arm. He looks, silently, at where Rey sits at his workbench. Her back is hunched over, the bumps of her spine too easy to see where her training tank rides up. Her hair is down and a terrible, matted mess--held back from her eyes by a pair of borrowed goggles that rest far easier on her head than they ever did on his. Her feet are folded on the bottom rung of the stool, not touching the ground.

 

He yawns. “What are you doing?”

 

She glances and jerks, as if guilty at being caught. Rey pivots on the stool, until she faces the small bed. “I found my lightsaber,” is all she says. “In your clothes on the floor.”

 

“Scavenger,” he says without any anger. In the millions of scenarios he has pictured during her imprisonment, this was one of the best.

 

She smiles a little at that. Her skin is too pale, missing the freckles and sunburns he’s so used to seeing on her.

 

Kylo’s tired eyes flicker to the small window at the top of the room--there is no sunlight.

 

“Come here,” he whispers.

 

Rey looks down at her workbench, considering-

 

“No.” He decides for her.

 

She smiles earnestly this time, setting the torch down. Her bare feet pad across the floor.

 

The first thing he does when she gets close enough is tear the goggles from her head. Then he pulls her on top of him and kisses her hungrily.

 

They fall together, and when they undress neither makes comment of the new scars or marks upon their skin.

 

\--

 

They don’t leave his room at all, that first day back. Recovery is foreign and strange for both of them, so twenty-four hours feels like years in the life they might have been able to live--were they anyone else, were the galaxy kinder than what it was.

 

 **\--**  
**Day Two.**  
\--

 

“I hate this episode,” Luke says flatly, back resting against a mountain of pillows. She is thrown by how ill he looks, the purple circles under his eyes, but his med charts say he is recovering. That his vitality is returning--it’s a miracle, where they had hoped for none.

 

Rey leans against the wall, sitting on the stool by his bedside. With her hair washed and untangled, her wounds mostly healed, and her clothes replaced, she feels the million miles of distance from the dirt floor of her cell. Warmth emanates from this room, even though Wedge is sitting to a table on the opposite side of Luke’s bed, and he has a wariness toward her that he never had before.

 

But if Luke can ignore it, so can she.

 

Rey pops the bottle cap off of a terribly old beer, kicking her feet up to rest in Luke’s lap in a motion that is so effortlessly familiar. “This is the one where they adopt a gizka-”

 

“And they take over the whole ship, yes,” he says with a groan. To his side, a med droid hovers, taking his vitals for about the third time since Rey’s been in to visit. She can tell they irritate him, but her Master bears it with only a slightly annoyed raise of the brows.

 

She smiles, watching as the small, yellow amphibians begin to hop from place to place--Dr. Marrow swearing up a storm as he tries to wrangle them. They’re five episodes in for a _Nebulae’s Crossings_ marathon. When invited, Wedge only rolled his eyes and went back to reading something on his datapad.

 

“How are you feeling?” Luke asks about halfway into episode seven and Rey’s second beer.

 

She pauses her drink. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

 

She’s heard about what happened with Dolari. About the sacrifice Luke made to save Kylo. She expects nothing less from the man who has become her father in all but name, but is still always humbled and amazed by his ability to forgive.

 

It’s one she doesn’t know if she shares. Her thumb digs into the label of the beer bottle, as she thinks about the cell. The beatings. The cold disdain of milky blue eyes.

 

“You now how much I love naps,” he says with a smile.

 

She winces at that, remembering his near-lifeless body and Moraband. And Luke immediately understands.

 

“You did what you had to, Rey.”

 

She clears her throat, her eyes stinging. “I think I made a mistake.”

 

Luke finds her hand, and holds it. “If it’s a mistake,” he says gently, “It’s one that kept me alive.”

 

Rey lets go of a long breath.

 

The next episode starts. Wedge wordlessly pours himself a glass of something that smells stronger than beer. And Luke and Rey share a conspiring, humorous look at the motion.

 

\--

 

“I have a hunk of star destroyer and no idea where to put it,” his mother greets the instant he walks into her quarters. “So, I suppose I should thank you for that.”

 

He thinks about just turning around, but Rey is with _Luke_ today and he needs something to occupy his time so he doesn’t head down to the holding cells.

 

There are also two mugs of steaming hot cocoa on the table. He takes one because he can, not because he wants to.

 

“Stubborn as ever,” Leia muses, crossing her quarters to come sit at the table next to him. She sets down a datapad in favor of holding her own mug. “I wonder where you get that from.”

 

He sends her an acidic look, and something not-quite a grin crosses his mother’s face.

 

They drink in silence. About halfway into the mug, a serving droid brings another and Kylo glares at it, suspicious.

 

“What do you want to talk about,” he infers. Two mugs implies staying longer than the customary thirty minutes.

 

“Things are about to get ugly,” is all Leia says. She rests her hand on the table, and he sees her wearing a ring missing one of its matched crystals. “Right now we’re in the honeymoon phase of a major victory, but there’ll be questions soon.”

 

“About me.”

 

“More importantly,” Leia says, “About Snoke.”

 

There’s a long silence. Kylo stares intently at the table.

 

“Where is he?” He finally manages.

 

“In the holding cells with Dolari. She’s agreed to cooperate in keeping him...restrained.” Leia sighs. “I wanted immediate execution. Luke’s told me to wait.”

 

Kylo frowns. “Until?”

 

She looks at him over the rim of her mug. “I’m not sure if he’s being a bleeding heart or if there’s a reason.” Her gaze is shrewd, observant. “Any insights?”

 

Kylo presses his lips together. “No.”

 

“...are you going to see him?”

 

The question throws him, despite his having prepared for it. While he’s heard Snoke’s voice in his mind, it’s been years since he last saw his former Master in person. And since then, he’s…

 

Kylo clenches his jaw. Thinks about the tally marks on Ben Kanata’s wall.

 

“You should’ve just executed him,” he finally bites out, draining the rest of his mug.

 

They sit together in a shared, angry silence. After a moment, Leia’s hand reaches for his. He surprises them both when he grabs it back--a tense, perfunctory squeeze that speaks more than a year’s worth of shared small talk over forced dinners.

 

\--

 

They sit next together on the bed, that evening, sharing dinner together. The castle's tavern was considered, but Kylo caught Rey tensing at the stares and immediately decided it wasn’t appropriate.

 

“Luke’s doing well,” she starts, grabbing part of his synthsteak without asking like the greedy thing she is.

 

“I don’t care,” he says, and she rolls her eyes while chewing with her mouth open.

 

“You should see him.”

 

Kylo catches what isn’t said. “Before?”

 

Rey swallows. “We both know this isn’t going to last,” she finally settles on.

 

He knows. So after he’s sure she’s eaten her fill, he immediately levitates the plates to the workbench and draws her to him for a kiss.

 

 **\--  
** **Day Three.**  
\--

 

“You had sex in here, didn’t you.”

 

Rey chokes, hand slipping from the gear her magwrench is stripping. She swears when it cuts across her hand, bringing her finger to her mouth.

 

Finn doesn’t look at her, his attention on stripping some of _The Happabore’s_ old wires. The two are finally salvaging the old hunk of junk. “That’s a yes. Rey, I’ve _slept_ in these bunks.”

 

“It wasn’t on the bunks.”

 

“Rey!”

 

She laughs, the sound hurting her still-mending sides. But it must be infectious, because soon Finn is laughing too. After a moment they’re both laying back on the floor, wheezing with breath as Rey uses the back of her hand to wipe away happy tears from her eyes.

 

“It’s good to have you back, Rey,” he finally manages.

 

She thinks about their earlier years in the Resistance. After she came back with Luke from Ahch-To. Of how straightforward and simple everything used to feel in those days.

 

Rey sighs, nostalgic. “I wish I could stay.”

 

There’s a long silence.

 

“It’s about what you saw, isn’t it?” Finn asks, staring up at the ceiling. “In his head.”

 

She nods without hesitation.

 

“...No chance I’m going with you this time, is there?”

 

She thinks about the stamp, what it might mean. Of how Snoke might have been the last person to see it.

 

“I think you know where you’re needed most,” she finally whispers. Not sad, not happy. Resolved.

 

“Yeah, I do,” he responds in the same tone. He unclips his lightsaber, gives it a small turn as he brings it up to eye-level. She knows the hilt’s scuffed and carbon scored from her fighting with it. And. Well. Using it to stab a star destroyer.

 

“I can sand it out,” she offers.

 

“Nah,” he says thoughtfully, turning it again. “I like it this way.”

 

\--

 

He watches them, late in the afternoon. It started with him looking for Rey, then finding her out in the clearing he accidentally made after Luke’s rescue from the flow. She’s stripped down to a simple tunic and loose trousers, her opponent wearing more form-fitting athletic gear as they spar--silver and gold and red all clashing together in quick blurs.

 

They make terrible partners, he thinks uncharitably, as neither of them is taking the match seriously. Even still, he can see that Rey is going to need time to recover. To get back to what she used to be.

 

“Better to give them space right now,” comes a tired voice to his side.

 

Kylo turns, frowning as Kes takes a step closer to him. The old man is wearing a pair of comfortable fatigues, one of his hands resting easily in the pocket. The other is holding a half-smoldered cigarro.

 

“What do you want?” He snaps, eyes narrowed.

 

“Another man for our card game,” Kes says easily. As if the last 72 hours had never happened. “Last I remember, you had some credits on you. So c’mon, let’s go.”

 

Kylo frowns. His gaze goes back to Rey and Finn--

 

“Don’t be a hovercraft spouse,” Kes chides.

 

He tenses at the word _spouse._ Not sure what to make of that label but knowing it instantly makes him uneasy. Leia had been a spouse. Han had been a spouse.

 

His shock is enough for Kes to sling an arm around his shoulders, steering him back to the castle. “And no Jedi shit, or we take your credits and kick you out.”

 

\--

 

He’s glaring at the table when he feels her approach.

 

“Rey,” Poe says with a smirk that is too satisfied. “Came to watch The Dark One lose the rest of his credits?”

 

“Not doing well?” She asks him. He scowls in response.

 

She hesitates, then takes the seat closest to him. A statement that makes him feel reassured in a room full of once enemies and not-quite allies. She smells of the earth and sweat, likely coming straight from the sparring ring.

 

Finn takes a seat next to Poe, as though confirming Kylo’s deduction. “What’re we playing?” He asks with a grin.

 

“Sabaac,” Kes grunts around the edge of his cigarro, redealing the cards to include Finn. “Buy in is 20 credits.”

 

“Sure,” Finn says, taking a hand.

 

Kylo looks at his hand, not sure what to do with it.

 

Rey smiles, taking it from him. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I’ll win it back for you.”

 

There’s a couple of snorts at the table at her declaration, and she grins at Poe who winks in return and Kylo narrows his eyes.

 

\--

 

They spend the night in the tavern, Rey taking back his money and then most of Kes’s and Finn’s. He says little, but watches her laugh, watches her smile, as she sits around those she calls family and wonders what it would mean to be part of that.

 

 **\--**  
**Day Four.**  
\--

“Well,” Leia says as they walk by themselves through the forest surrounding the castle, “It’s getting ugly.”

 

He crosses his arms. “In what ways.”

 

“There’s a stalemate on Snoke. Half want him dead, half want him interrogated, tried, and then dead.” She sends him a meaningful look. “Regardless, he doesn’t have much time in our holding cells.”

 

He hears the unspoken implication. _If you’re going to say something to him, do it now._ Kylo doesn’t know if he feels that need, that call for closure. But he tenses and his mother notices, so she presses on.

 

“There’s talk about formally charging you with war crimes. Not undeserved, but circumstances are far from ordinary.” She pauses, finding a boulder nearly as tall as she is to sit on. Her brown eyes, the same as his own, look out at the castle in the distance. “There are going to be some who think you should be executed.”

 

“Unsurprising.” His voice takes an edge. “I’ve seen Republic justice.”

 

“Let’s not start on that particular diatribe,” Leia cuts him off. She looks tired, his mother. Her back hunched and her eyes swollen from what he imagines to be a lack of sleep. “The fact that Luke is vouching for you and Dolari will make a difference.”

 

He scowls at that. “Anything else?”

 

Leia looks up at him, and this time it’s not the ruthless politician but his mother that stares at him. “You should know about Rey.”

 

A tense silence. “What.”

 

“A few conservatives are voicing concern. They think she might have been…”

 

“Been _what_.”

 

Leia sighs. “Conditioned. During her captivity. There’s talks about her being a sleeper agent.”

 

“She almost died for them!” He snarls.

 

“I know,” Leia says with a voice of granite. “And most of us aren’t going to forget that.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “They want her to undergo evaluation. Soon. And then mandatory observation-”

 

“They want to lock her away again,” he says poisonously. And, because it’s the Resistance, Rey would let them. “That won’t happen.”

 

Leia meets his eyes and he sees something hard behind them. “Of course not.” And then it fades, becoming something a little softer as she shakes her head in a weary sort of amusement.

 

“If you’re going to run away together, now's your chance.”

 

He almost thinks from her tone that she’d approve.

 

\--

 

“You’re going to be leaving soon,” Luke says, taking a few steps at a time. Rey helps him patiently, the two of them working on his physical rehabilitation together as he climbs up and down the stairs to Maz’s basement.

 

Rey’s grip on his arm goes lighter. “...Yes,” she admits. There’s no use denying it. She can sense it on the horizon, a darkening storm that she must go to. Luke, undoubtedly, feels it too.

 

“I understand,” he says, breath coming in a little stronger than it did yesterday. There’s more color in his cheeks. “At some point…” He looks at her, smiles that sad, paternalistic smile that makes her want to hold on to his robes and not let go. “We have to keep going, don’t we?”

 

She nods.

 

“The Jedi,” he continues, going up another step. “Are peace keepers. But you have to stand to create a shelter, be a brand against those who would threaten it.” His eyes go cloudy, distance. “There’s a lot out there, Rey, that will change you.”

 

She knows he speaks from experience. But she says the only thing she can. “I’m ready.”

 

“Not yet,” he says, as he reaches the landing of the step. “Wait three or four days.”

 

She blinks. “What for?”

 

He laughs. “We’re going to take that day trip to Nar Shaddaa.”

 

\--

 

She feels his eyes on her as she undresses, and after a moment she looks up. “What is it?” She asks.

 

Kylo doesn’t say anything from where he sits on the bed, but she senses the darkness growing around him like a cloud.

 

She steps toward him, kneeling so that she’s eye-level. “Kylo, what?”

 

He brings his hand to the side of her face. “We can’t stay here.”

 

She presses her lips against his palm. “I know.”

 

The admission makes him startle. And she stands, slipping away from his touch and going back to the workbench to finish the upgrades on her lightsaber.

 

“Give me a few more days,” is what she settles on.

 

He stares at her, processing her words, before he nods and pushes himself fully onto the bed, arms crossed behind his head as he stares up at the ceiling.

 

 **\--**  
**Day Five.**  
\--

“You’re looking better,” Leia tells her, as the two of them sort through Resistance datapads together in her quarters.

 

She isn’t. Not fully. Because she still wakes up, thinking she’s about to be dragged away somewhere. She still hears a man’s voice calling her _Kira_ in her dreams. But she nods. “Almost good as new.”

 

Leia sends her an understanding look. “Take your time with it,” is all she says. She slides Rey a mug of caf and she takes it with a thankful smile. “And help me figure out what we can do with this star destroyer my son decided to rip open.”

 

She grins at that, looking at schematics and intel reports. “We can repurpose most of the plating-”

 

It’s a peaceful afternoon, spent doing what Rey does best: scavenging.

 

The throne she suggests incinerating. Leia agrees.

 

\--

 

Kylo sits by himself, staring at the tally marks in Ben Kanata’s room. After a few hours, he takes a deep, steadying breath.

 

\--

 

The walk to the holding cells is well lit, almost friendly if not for the literal line of armed soldiers. He is flanked by two of them, bearing with their presence because in the end he knows their presence doesn’t matter.

 

They approach the end of the hall, where three cells are occupied. The doors are heavy stone, impossible to see through, but Kylo pauses when he feels Dolari’s presence in the middle one. He tenses, then walks to the cell on the end.

 

“Let me talk to him,” he demands.

 

The guards look at one another.

 

The one on the right scowls. “The General gave him clearance.”

 

With reluctance, they type in a code. The door slides open, and Kylo steps through.

 

\--

 

Snoke sits, golden robe replaced by a medward tunic that barely fits his large frame. He looks at Kylo when he walks through as though he is expecting him.

 

“Ah, the prodigal son at last,” he says with no humor.

 

Kylo stares at him, this captured creature that once seemed so limitless to him. That had made him feel _worth_ something, once.

 

“Impressive,” he says dryly, “What you did to my ship. I knew such things were always in your grasp.”

 

Kylo remains silent. Once, not very long ago, praise from Snoke would have had him bowing in reverence. But nothing is the same now. Nothing is going to be the same again.

 

“I assume you are not here to free me,” he continues.

 

“No,” Kylo states. His fist clenches at his side. A cold sweat crawls down his neck. It _hurts,_ to be this close to him, to the one he believed in above all others.

 

Snoke nods, a simple lowering of his chin as he looks away. “A pity. There was so much more to be achieved together, Kylo. My work, my self, is not finished solely because of one anomaly.” His voice goes softer. “There is still time to return to my side, should you choose. I will be merciful. Emotional attachments...influence us all, at one time or another.”

 

It occurs to Kylo then, with sharp and unending clarity, that Snoke is loneliest thing in the galaxy.

 

He stares at him. Hatred emanating from his presence in the Force. It would be so easy, to lift his arm, snap his neck. Take the lightsaber at his side and plunge it into his chest.

 

“You shouldn’t have hurt her,” is all he says.

 

“No,” Snoke agrees, though not for the same reasons. “I shouldn’t have.”

 

 **\--  
** **Day Six.**  
\--

 

The next morning, it’s his uncle that finds him.

 

Kylo has ended up, of all places, back at the warehouse where he used to work. Where he saw his first vision of Rey as Ben Kanata. In a way, the place where he started to reclaim his past. His scabbed over and calloused hands take apart his lightsaber, reassembling it in the way Rey taught him--readjusting the balance and forming a new hilt. This one made from some guerrerite he found suspiciously placed in his multi-kit. It grafts easily enough, making his lightsaber’s hilt a dark grey.

 

“Nice beard,” his uncle addresses, breaking the quiet he’s found for himself.

 

Kylo looks up as the old man comes in, a hand ghosting over the scruff he hasn’t bothered to shave since arriving from Lehon. He’s decided he likes it, the change it makes to his face. How it makes him look less like anyone else.

 

Uninvited, Luke takes a seat across from Kylo, and places his own lightsaber on the table.

 

“Pass me the spanner,” is all he says, and Kylo snorts.

 

“Get it yourself.”

 

Luke smiles, a little forced but honest. With barely a thought, the untouched spanner slides across the table, and he starts disassembling his own weapon.

 

They work in silence for nearly an hour.

 

“Take care of her,” is all Luke says after a very long time.

 

Kylo doesn’t bother dignifying the request with a nod. He starts to solder the emitter carefully.

 

“And yourself,” Luke finishes.

 

His hand slips. And Kylo swears, before he starts over on the wires he was patching.

 

\--

 

“There’s a woman demanding to see you,” one of Leia’s scouts says to her.

 

Rey looks up from part of the salvage she is sorting, confused. “Who?”

 

The man raises an eyebrow. “She says her name is Orin, and that she saved your damn life.”

 

Rey lowers the piece of sheet metal. “...Tell her to meet me at the holding cells.”

 

\--

 

“You locked her up?!” Orin growls, lighting up the fourth cigarro Rey’s seen her smoke since she met her at the threshold of the cells.

 

“She did the same,” Rey says flatly, “After letting some stormtroopers beat me.”

 

Orin glares at her, letting out a growled “ _FIne,_ ” before attempting to storm off, remembering that she doesn’t know the way, and falling back into line with Rey again. “If she’s hurt, I-”

 

“She’s not,” Rey says. “Luke has vouched for her, and she’s cooperating with the Resistance to keep Snoke contained.”

 

Orin’s stumbles. “ _Snoke_?!”

 

“Yes. In the cell at the end of this row.”

 

“Shab,” she whispers, taking another drag of her cigarro. “...guess that means we can actually defect.”

 

Rey looks at her.

 

Orin looks back. “What?” She demands.

 

“You’d join the Resistance?”

 

“I’m a doctor,” is all she says, throwing the butt on the ground and lighting up another one. “They’re all just bodies in the end.” Orin’s eyes meet Rey’s meaningfully. “And there’s a saying about the enemies of enemies.”

 

Rey, despite herself, smiles. “I’ll set you up a meeting with Leia.”

 

“You do that. But first I want to see Dolari.”

 

Rey stops, facing the cell door. “She’s in here.”

 

“Well? Open it!”

 

Rey nods at the guards at the door. They eye the woman who reeks of cigarro smoke, her wild hair half done up in a bright scarf, and her bicep covered in a Mandalorian tattoo, before they reluctantly stand aside.

 

The door opens.

 

Dolari stands in front of a row of plants, all of them half-dead but not withered. She’s wearing the white tunic and trousers of the med ward, and when she sees Orin her entire face lights up with a smile.

 

“Let the guards know when you want to go,” Rey instructs.

 

Orin nods with relieved tears in her eyes, stepping forward as Rey steps back. The door slides closed. And Rey stares at it for a moment longer, before turning to the last cell in the hall.

 

The darkness surrounding it calls, beckons. Snoke is waiting, and he is waiting for _her._

 

She’s been waiting for him, too.

 

Rey straightens her shoulders, taking the few remaining steps down the hall. “I want to see him,” she manages.

 

The guard looks at her with what might be pity, or suspicion, but they key in the code. And Rey walks in.

 

\--

 

“You took your time,” Snoke greets, standing with his hands folded in front of his stomach. He is a tall man, taller than even Chewbacca was, but Rey refuses to be intimidated. She knows there’s a scar on his shoulder, made by ordinary old blaster fire.

 

“You know why I’m here,” she says, resolve filling her.

 

“Yes.” He watches her. “I suppose, in this, I am at your mercy.”

 

Rey lets steel enter her voice. “Then you had better sit down.”

 

To her amazement, he obeys. Even at a seat, he is taller than her, but Rey steps forward without fear.

 

“I understand,” Snoke admits with reluctance, “Why he would leave for you.”

 

“Are feelings _that_ difficult for you to-”

 

“No, not feelings.” His eyes rest on her. “I have seen your kind before, Rey of Jakku. I will see another again.”

 

“And what kind is that?” She snaps.

 

“The heart of the Force.” Snoke closes his eyes, and if she didn’t know any better she would say he looked... _reverent._ “I am far older than you know, child. And there was one like you before. Her steps are the ones you will trace, when you find what it is that you need in my mind.”

 

Rey frowns. “What do you mean?”

 

In response Snoke only goes completely still. “You may begin.”

 

She hesitates when she’s given permission for what she was fully prepared to take. But after a moment, Rey’s hand stretches out, her fingers grazing his temples, and she lets herself surrender to the pull of his memories.

 

\--

 

_They are back in the room on the Enclave of Dantooine, although this time there is no Aalto. In his place is the woman from her visions, from so very long ago. The one whose crystal she has given to Kylo._

 

_“This isn’t Snoke’s memory,” Rey says, skeptical._

 

_“No,” the woman says. She walks the length of what must have once been her dormitory as a student. “But it is what Aalto wanted you to find, a way to me he folded into Snoke. A secret path in the flow.”_

 

_“What do you mean?”_

 

_“I told you once,” the woman says, sounding sad. “That stories have a habit of repeating themselves. That you could be great and terrible things--a savior, a conqueror. A hero or villain. That you would feel the pain of being neither, the pain of being alone.”_

 

_Rey nods, remembering. “But I’m still not alone,” her eyes flicker. “And I have known loss.”_

 

_“You have. And maybe your story will have a different ending because of it.” The woman’s head tilts. “Then again, maybe you won’t.”_

 

_Rey tries to settle her nerves, and asks the question she asked years ago. “Who are you?”_

 

_The woman smiles. “I am still someone long forgotten. But you can call me Revan.”_

 

_“And why am I meant to find you?”_

 

_“To tell you not to forget the whispers, the ghosts of Dantooine and all the other Jedi who came before,” she says._

 

_In the light of the vision, her face flickers to a mask--one that reminds her, strongly, of Kylo’s. “To remind you that paths of great power come with great loss. And I am the one who is a memory, who is a warning.”_

 

_She steps forward, and Rey sees the spectre of her holding ignited lightsabers, one purple. One red. “And now, I am the one who is your guide.”_

 

_“To what?” Rey whispers._

 

_“To where Snoke built his navy.” The woman extends her hand, and Rey takes it. “To the Star Forge.”_

 

_Dantooine and Revan fall away, and thousands of stars replace them._

 

_\--_

 

_Rey sees it, the shipyard in space. Built by those of Lehon, taken by the Sith. Taken by Revan and her partner, Malak. And then, taken by Snoke._

 

_It creates endless ships, endless forces._

 

_But Rey also sees beyond it. Into the Unknown. Where there are answers and questions, just waiting for someone to discover them. She sees the star maps in her mind, whirling with coordinates that will be the first step on her long journey._

 

_Rey sees. Learns. And then she steals the memories away from Snoke’s mind, so that he might never find them again._

 

\--

 

She backs away from him, seeing that his gaze is slightly cloudy.

 

“It was never about getting close enough to kill you,” Rey realizes softly.

 

Snoke stares at her, knowing that she has taken something from him that he can not get back--that is lost forever.

 

“Be careful of what you are, Rey of Jakku,” he says in a soft curse. “Be careful of what you could become.”

 

In response, Rey lowers her hand, and grabs the leather string around his throat. A glint of red comes out from underneath his robe--a token she is more than familiar with.

 

“This is mine,” she states, ripping away the pendant that contains Kylo’s kyber crystal.

 

And then she leaves, only allowing herself to look forward.

 

\--  
**Day Seven.** **  
** \--

 

He is woken up by a kiss on his temple.

 

“I’m going to Nar Shaddaa,” Rey says, fully dressed and in a crouch by the bedside. He catches a glow of red in the darkness--his old kyber crystal. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” Her voice softens. “And then...then it’s probably time for us to leave.”

 

Kylo forces his sleep-logged eyes open just in time to see the door close behind her.

 

\--

 

Luke is waiting for her at the tarmac, grinning in a way that makes him look boyish.

Rey returns the expression, feeling for all the world like she’s nineteen again.

 

\--

 

“Guess this is it for you, huh?”

 

Kylo looks away from the rations he’s preparing to see Finn, standing by the door with his arms crossed. “Here to stop me?”

 

Finn snorts, taking a step into the storage room. He tosses him a datapad. “Hell no, let me help you pack.”

 

Kylo looks down at it, eyes widening when he realizes it’s the transporter codes the Resistance uses to when they want unregistered ships to depart.

 

“How did you get these?”

 

Finn smiles, throwing three blocks of vegbread into Kylo’s pack. “I’m a big deal around here.”

 

\--

 

They fly to Nar Shaddaa, where they spend their time in the market, eating anything and everything. At the casino, where they both suspiciously win large amounts of credits. At the swoop races, where Luke surprises Rey by entering a heat and surprises her further by winning it.

 

It’s as close to a perfect day as she’s ever had.

 

\--

 

He spends the night in his mother’s rooms. They don’t talk much, but she pulls a full bottle of Corellian brandy out of one of her hidden compartments and wags it suggestively.

 

They’re about halfway through the bottle, when Kylo clears his throat and says two very difficult words.

 

“...I’m sorry.”

 

Leia’s eyes well with tears, and she presses her cheek against his shoulder, arms wrapped around him in a motherly embrace that he is now far too big for. “Me too.”

 

He closes his eyes. And admits it for the first time in over five years. “I miss him.”

 

Leia’s arms tighten around him. “Me too.”

 

And for also the first time, Kylo lets himself feel the full effect of grief for Han Solo, for Leia and Ben Organa, for the family they were never going to be and the family he desperately wanted for so much of his life.

 

\--

**Day Eight.**

\--

 

The cold seeps into his back, but Kylo doesn’t pay it any mind as he leans further against the crate. Maz’s place never sleeps, but there’s a few hours between night and morning where it gets still. And maybe old routines die hard, but it’s during this time that he catches himself out here on the shipping yard--a little hungover, a little exhausted.

 

The stars shine in dim little flickers as the ruby-red sunrise of Takodana emerges on the horizon. He watches them, tracing patterns he now intimately knows. Travels he’s had. Constellations he’s seen. None of them home, but one of them being the planet home is coming back from. Where somebody out there misses him.

 

He shrugs the leather jacket around his shoulders. Leia had given it to him before he said goodbye for what might be the last time, saying it was Han’s and that she couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. In all honesty, he hates it and will never wear it, but the morning is cold and the drink has made it colder still, so there needs to be some insulation and the jacket is there and smelling of cheap brandy and cheaper coolant fluid.

 

And someone is smacking his leg.

 

“ _What_ ?” Maz Kanata snaps down below him, small hands on small hips. “You stay in _my_ castle and think you get to leave without a goodbye?!”

 

“Maz-”

 

“No no no,” she chides, climbing up until she sits beside him on the crate. “No _Maz._ ” She pats her front, then her sides, before finally finding something in one of her pockets. “Here, take this-”

 

“I don’t want-”

 

“ _Take it._ ” She orders, pressing a datapad into his hand.

 

He does.

 

 _Room & Board (three years, six months, and eight days): 110,000 credits_  
_Damage to shipyard from Assassin after you: 37,809 credits_  
_Supplies and manpower for smuggling and mechanical training: 18,620 credits_ _  
Goggles: 73 credits_

 

“This is a bill,” he states.

 

She pats him on the cheek. “Make sure you come back here to pay it.”  Then she wraps her arms around his shoulders as much as she can manage, and hops down the crates.

 

“By the way,” she calls as she starts to cross the tarmac. “Let Rey know I repaired and recovered her ship for her. Her bill is on the next file.”

 

Stupidly, Kylo flips.

 

 _Restoration and recovery of_ Millennium Falcon: _30 credits <3 _

 

Maz has clear favorites. He looks up to protest-

 

-but the woman is already gone.

 

He sighs, pocketing the bill and not sure why he feels fond of it.

 

Above him, one of the stars becomes engine lights.

 

And Kylo smiles, knowing whose they are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -"Shab" means "Fuck" in Mandalorian
> 
> -[Revan](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Revan), who is always a lady to me <3 she first showed up in chapter 10 and then 13 of TDoKR
> 
> -[The Star Forge](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Forge), which is also the stamp Rey saw drawn on the brick in her prison cell
> 
> -[Star maps](http://swtor.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Maps)
> 
> -[Nar Shaddaa](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nar_Shaddaa), where Luke promised to take Rey in chapter 4 or 5 of TDoKR
> 
> -[Sabaac](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sabacc)
> 
> and, of course,
> 
> -[gizka](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gizka) ;)


	8. epilogue: cross the stars

He skims his palm over the fabric of the pilot’s seat. It’s torn in several spots, fabric frayed and stuffing peaking out in little tufts. He’s discarded the jacket as soon as they boarded, but the smell of his father still clings to him--every inch of this ship, from the bad upholstery to the mismatched metal walls, is an echo of Han Solo.

 

Part of him wishes they could leave in any other ship. The galaxy was full of them. Part of him wonders about penance. 

 

He hears Rey’s footsteps behind him, and he schools his face into one that’s more impassive, tries to tell his stomach that it hurts a little less. 

 

She seems to sense it anyway, because she wraps her arms around him, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades.

 

“You don’t have to come with me,” Rey says. 

 

He grabs her arm with his hand, and squeezes it before gently removing it. He turns, and he sees her expression, reads her intent in the Force.

 

This isn’t a journey she intends to return from. 

 

“I know.”  He bends down, kissing her and letting his touch fall from the pilot’s seat.

 

\--

 

_ The Falcon  _ lifts off the surface of Takodana, and Rey watches as Kylo takes command of piloting. He moves every button with a slight delay, as though not trusting either the ship or himself or both. Her attention moves from him to the gathering of people below, and she feels her eyes prickle with tears.

 

Luke and Leia stand at the front, the latter holding on to the former for support. Wedge stands not far behind, arms crossed over his chest. Kes to his right, beside Poe who gives the ship a parting salute. 

 

Her gaze stays longest on Finn. Who smiles at her despite his sadness and waves with huge, sweeping movements. Rey curls her fingers against the viewport, lets them rest against it as though reaching for his hand.

 

Out of everything in these last seven years, what Rey is most thankful for is that she has found something to say goodbye to.

  
  


The Corellian freighter rocks, rattles. It flies higher into the atmosphere until the people become spots of colors, until trees fade into blurs of green and then swatches of green and blue. She remembers her first visit here, with Han and Finn and BB-8 and Chewbacca. The sheer amazement to have found a place so perfect after a childhood in a wasteland.

 

Soon, they’re in the space above the planet, and Rey turns to Kylo. His face is drawn, pale--and she knows it’s not because the goodbye was difficult but because he does not know how to move forward yet.

 

She leans over from her place in the co-pilot’s seat, grabbing one of his hands with both of her own. She is not surprised to find that his fingers are trembling, that they calm when she grips them and moves his hand above the lever that will drive  _ The Falcon  _ into hyperspace and whatever’s beyond it.

 

“Ready?” Rey asks.

 

He looks at her, eyes dark and intent, before he nods.

 

Together, they pull it back. 

 

The space around them morphs, streams of light taking shape and thousands of stars running before them as the  _ Falcon  _ takes what might be its last jump.

 

Or, maybe, it’s just another step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been almost two years, nearly 200k words, and a lot of wonderful support from you guys. thank you for the comments, the edits, the art, the playlist, the kudos, the reblogs, the patience, the bookmarks, and most importantly for taking this last step with me! 
> 
> this is the longest thing i've ever completed and i owe it to you all <3 <3 <3 <3
> 
> also feel free to come hang with me on tumblr! i'm at [gizkasparadise](http://gizkasparadise.tumblr.com) :D


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